1. I brought a friend over to my dad’s house. We were maybe 14, going through that shitty phase where you want sex the most and yet your physical appearance is at its peak of repulsiveness. It’s a great combo.
This being the first meeting between my dad and this friend, my dad looked him over and said, “You have real bad acne.”
My friend didn’t really know what to say, this unspeakable thing replacing a greeting like, “Hi” or “Hello.”
The worst part was, he didn’t just let it go.
“Have you thought about getting on any medication?”
2. On arriving at Water World, we all sat around waiting for my dad to change into his swim trunks. The rest of us changed before leaving, one of the many tricks you come up with real fast when you’re young and have a fear that your dick may be potentially the smallest on record. This is the same reason why you see boys changing in bathroom stalls at the gym. It doesn’t really make sense because it’s not like anyone’s going to believe a story about a crazy-looking cock. In fact, if your cock was bright green and your friends saw it, that would be fine because nobody would ever believe it.
After a few minutes, my dad came out of the locker room wearing a blue Speedo, which was the entirety of his attire for the rest of the day.
3. I wasn’t a tall kid, and I can remember once walking into a grocery store when my dad crouched down in a sort of duck walk and started walking next to me at my height.
“You mostly just see people’s butts, huh?”
It was kind of funny, but I was pretty sure he was only doing it because he was looking at a particular ass in front of us, which is something that everyone does, but usually we’re a little more discreet than duckwalking into a grocery store three feet behind said ass.
4. I already covered Cub Scouts for the most part, but there’s another incident that sticks out in my brain because other people have reminded me about it, including a friend’s dad who was there, even twenty years later.
My dad set up a gigantic tent, probably a 12-man or so with a roof high enough you could stand up in it. During the day people got settled and figured where they’d sleep. My dad’s tent, though very roomy, was almost empty because every time a kid came walking into the tent he would yell at them to take their shoes off. After they did, he would then give them a solid 5-minute lecture on why you need to take your shoes off, how shoes could tear the tent bottom, and how anything stuck to the bottom would destroy the tent as well.
I slept in a different tent that was so packed with kids that I spent the night at an angle because I was sleeping on what would be, under normal circumstances, the tent wall.
5. It wasn’t until later that this seemed like anything to worry about.
At home especially, but even in the occasional restaurant, my dad was a big plate licker. He would pick up the plate, hold it straight up and down, a lick whatever juices and remains were leftover on the plate. I can even remember him licking the wax paper of a sandwich wrapper once.
When we were little kids, it was actually pretty funny. I don’t think I’ve since seen another person actually consider licking a plate, let alone be asked to please stop licking a plate in a restaurant.