You Can't Pick Your Family: Part 1

Family. That six letter word that many people fear around the holidays, baptisms, gymnastic meets, and such actually brings about a pretty good feeling for me. Now don't get me wrong, after about a month or two of being stuck in Alaska with that six letter word I start getting a little Szchio... but before that time, everything is great!


My father is one of the funniest people I know. One day I started referring to him as Fabio who, unbeknownst to me at the time, has incredibly long, thick, and lustrous hair... and my dad... well he doesn't, but he likes the nickname anyway.


I definitely inherited my godlike sarcastic characteristics from that man.The best part about it, or it could be the worst depending on the situation, is that he knows he is funny and its even better when it backfires right in his face!


Par example: Back in 2001, my dad, my little brother, and I are all in the car waiting at Sonic for our food to arrive. The car hop comes to collect the tab, which was under $10, and my father proceeds to hand the girl a 20 dollar bill and adds "keep the change". She then replies with "Wow, sir, that's a pretty big tip!" and my dad realizes he mistook that 20 for a 10 and quickly fixes the problem. All could have been fine and dandy but he continued to add "hey I got a tip for ya, brush and floss everyday" (which he would tell us children on every occasion and we never found it truly funny). But apparently this woman did because she gave us a big ole smile... with only a few teeth missing... like three. Boom. Posted.


Next example: my father got really into to those commercials about staying at the Holiday Inn Express once and so now he has unmeasured knowledge about unlikely areas. Here is one of them just in case you have been living under a Motel 8 the past 10 years....

So my dad thinks these commercials are hilarious and starts throwing that line out whenever he gets a chance. Like this one time (at band camp) we are at Sports Authority looking at baseballs and gloves, just dad and I. We are in the aisle checking things out and another father and his son are checking things out as well. If you have never been to the Sports Authority, all the employees used to wear red shirts (I don't know what the deal is now, the only place I go to "Oh, You Used to be Athletic... Here are Some Yoga Pants and Traffic Stopping Neon Colored Sports Bras", also known as Target). So back to the story at hand, my father is NOT wearing a red shirt, in fact he was probably wearing his most religious running shirt ("because its so 'Holey' Lauren"). Well the other man all of the sudden asks my dad "Excuse me, but do you work here?" and without missing a beat my father replies, "No... but I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express once", to which the man responds with a very meager "ha..." and grabs his son and walks away... My 12 year old self wanted to shrivel up and die of humiliation. But my dad thought he was the funniest person in the whole aisle... so that was a plus.


Tune in tomorrow when I discuss the person I like to call "Madre". Boom. Posted.