Dad

You might have noticed that my dad is a frequent subject of my postings. This is for two reasons: #1, I really love the guy & his idiosyncrasies makes me happy, and #2, he does some of the most embarrassing things you can ever imagine. It's kind of like living with Mr. Bean, but my dad is speaks better English.

Let me tell you what happened the other night. It was about 10:30, and I had just gotten to my parent's house. I had been coaxed home to do some slave labor in the yard for Mother's day. We were watching TV in the living room when dad got up and went into the kitchen. After a minute or so, I heard the sound of a knife being sharpened. This is an unmistakable sound, kind of like sound of gears grinding when you screw up the transition from 2nd to 3rd when you're trying to get on the freeway.

The thing that was odd about the knife sharpening was the time. It's fairly common on Sunday afternoons when we're about to devour a rump roast together, but Saturday night is a little atypical. Soon, my dad ambled back into the living room with our very best kitchen knife in his hand. This is a Cutco paring knife, which was undoubtedly purchased as the least expensive thing we could find in the catalog to assuage our guilt when the neighbor's son was selling Cutco years ago.

Dad sat down on the couch and proceeded to use the knife to pry at the hard dry skin on the bottom of his feet. As I watched with disgust, he said, "I have this wart here."

Mom came up the stairs and asked, "What ARE you doing?", as flakes of dead skin piled up on the living room rug.

His response? "Don't worry, I won't put it back in the drawer."