Don’t Teach the Old Man

August 23, 2017.Reading time 4 minutes.

We interrupt your regularly scheduled Wednesday post to let you know that we’ve hijacked Dad’s blog. We hate that we had to do it, but there are some things that need to be said.

Dad is old. This should be obvious and it probably is to everyone… except him.

It used to be okay because he worked and played around people his age. But now he has a few millennials in his office and they’ve been teaching him things. Bad things. He came home the other day and said we were “acting all boujee.” Did he use it in context? Yes. Should he ever use a word like boujee? No!

Someone is responsible for this and it has to stop.

Actually, it all started a few years ago when he heard Boom Boom Pow in a spin class. The fact that he was in a spin class is worrisome enough. More troubling is how many times he said we were, “so 2000 and late.” Seriously! He kept calling himself Mark I Am until we finally convinced him that the nickname was a play on the guy’s real name, William. After we caught him singing Apple Bottom Jeans we stole his iPod, wiped it, and changed the iTunes password so he couldn’t reload it. Desperate times…

But other things began happening:

He started wearing sleeveless shirts to the gym. We thought it was a phase, but day after day he was wearing something akin to a high-schooler’s bro-tank.
On a shopping trip to Old Navy, he wandered off and we caught him trying on skinny jeans. Skinny jeans! There he was, giggling at himself in the mirror. He knew it was wrong. But still, the man was in skinny jeans.
He downloaded Snapchat. Fortunately, he can’t figure it out and can only play with the filters, but still.

Now he’s decided that he’s woke and is using words like boujee. No, just no!

You cannot teach the old man modern words. He is not responsible with words – he never has been. Every school report card he ever got has a comment in the behavior column that goes something like this, “Mark needs to think before he speaks.” Obviously, he never learned and needs guidance. Listen, someday (probably sooner than we think) we will be guiding him to the toilet. That’s not going to be your problem, it will be ours unless we can move far away. We’re just asking for a little help on the words issue.

You might be wondering why this is a big deal. The ramifications of his behavior are far-flung and harmful to our family as well as himself. If he won’t stay in the appropriate word zone, he starts feeling younger than he is. Not only does he embarrass himself and us, he feels chipper enough to do things old folks just shouldn’t do… like climb ladders. We found out what a disaster that can be last year when he ended up in the emergency room.

This is for his own good.

Right now he’s sitting in his chair trying to figure out why his password won’t open anything. 1234… Seriously? This is who you’re willing to trust with modern dialect? We will let him back into his electronics soon, we just need some assurances that you people won’t feed his delusions of youth. I think we can agree it isn’t good for him or society in general.

The Road to Misperception?

August 3, 2017.Reading time 3 minutes.

Isn’t it funny how we see ourselves one way and others might see it another? Even when the difference in perception is brought to light, we still might not view things the same. And when you have children past the “Daddy is God” age, they love bringing a fault or two to your attention. It seems that this is their primary job, at least until they have to pay their first rent check.

I say this because it has recently been pointed out to me that I may have a misperception of my driving competency.

This being the last summer before our oldest graduates college, we’ve tried to spend some extra time together and I’m one of those people who feels like if I’m going to be in the car, I might as well be driving. My insurance company loves me and my driving record. I also think of myself as a good driver and this is where the opinion between me and my daughters diverge. It’s me vs. them.

How I view myself behind the wheel:

How my family sees it:

Evidently, I am a raging lunatic who brings my family one step closer to death every time I touch the wheel.

I don’t think anything has changed in my driving, I just think they notice things now. I liked it better in the days when they were oblivious – when they would watch videos in the backseat for hours and never look up to see daddy maniacally tailgating the Ohio driver doing forty in the left lane. Now whenever I meander over the yellow line, I see them in the rear-view mirror giving each other that knowing look. I feel like they already have a plan in place and are just waiting for evidence.

My first reaction is to tell them to shut-up. To explain in no uncertain terms that I taught them to drive and have damaged fewer cars in my thirty plus years than they have in five. But then… then I see clearly that these three will take my keys away someday and if it matters, right now the vote is 3 against 1. They have a lot of goods on me and with the right judge, I’m not sure where I could end up – a senior home? A padded cell? Certainly somewhere without a car!

We took a little trip to the zoo last weekend. I don’t think I’m afraid of them, but I did find myself subconsciously minding my lane and swallowing aggression against other drivers. Oh, and I also have found a very clever hiding place for my keys… just in case.