Don’t get me wrong, I am extremely proud of my teenager for a lot of reasons. As is the case with most Dads, I look at my daughter and feel like the world begins and ends right there. (Actually, it does to the extent that at some point she is going to give me heart failure!!) Being a teenager is scary enough to the teenager; it is downright terrifying to her parents. The idea of some moron with an IQ equal to his shoe size pawing your beloved has all of the appeal of sticking your hand into a blender. Dads know this because at some point they were all guys with one thing on their minds. Having a beautiful young daughter is my punishment, since generally as a teenager I was a Dad’s worst nightmare.
Now as I stare at the ceiling in my bedroom, waiting on the curfew time to elapse and the return of my daughter, I get nostalgic for my teenage years......only long enough to get scared for my daughter and livid at her date!! If she ever dated a guy like I was, ..... I would ...... I would .... Shoot the little @$!#@%. Since I am not allowed to shoot anyone, (my wife is rather strict on this rule), I now just hope that I did my job earlier in life by teaching her the basics. You know, the choke hold, the Bobbit fold and slice, the Chinese groin toss, and most importantly the 911 call. Now when I meet her date, I often just find comfort in knowing that sooner or later, my daughter is going to have kids just like her! Then maybe she can learn to tolerate the guy with the tattoo of a dragon’s butt on his forehead, the ring through the nose, the butch haircut, and a T-shirt that says “Hitler was a candy ass!”
In reality, the latter description has not happened yet. Most of the young men she brings by the house are clean cut, well behaved, and actually seem to be quite polite. THIS SCARES THE HELL OUT OF ME! At least the weirdo is visibly dangerous, the clean cut boys are more likely to be mass ax murderers with chainsaws in the trunks of their Dad’s cars. There was one boy she brought around the house who became my version of foot fungus. He was always there, impossible to get rid of, and extremely irritating. This chump had a laugh from hell. He would come in the house, eat anything not nailed down, and “wow” us with his great intellect.
On one particular evening, he was being unusually obtuse. (Hey, meathead, if you are reading this, obtuse means you were being stupid! Although, the odds of him reading this or anything more complex than a cereal box are probably real slim.) My daughter made the comment that something was “superfluous”. He responded with a resounding, “huh?” She then told him that “superfluous meant extraneous”, to which he again responded with, “HuuuuH??” Finally after several minutes of explanation, she told him that it was like adding something extra to a pizza that it didn’t need. To this day, I believe that he now thinks that superfluous means the same thing as an anchovy, you know a small fish, . . . . . . . . . . .
Another of his finer points was his laugh. The sound he made when he laughed cannot be found in nature! At first, but only at first, my wife and I would laugh when we heard him laugh. He would tell an awful unfunny story, but the minute he laughed we laughed as well. (Not with him, but at him. Sorry but you couldn’t help it!) This went on until we noticed that his laughter was not only infectious (like poison oak), but it also had the quality of fingernails going down a blackboard. It was like an episode from the twilight zone, this young man almost drove a whole city mad when he laughed ......... Whenever he was around the animals in the zoo would try to escape, and once the airport called us to complain about the noise. Imagine if you will the sound Bambi would make if you introduced him to a bull moose as a mating partner, or maybe what you would get if you crossed the sound of Woody Woodpecker being shoved into a food processor with a T. Rex eating a bus........ To put it simply, his laugh was just plain horrible.
Like a VERY bad sci-fi movie, the moment he walked into the house you immediately felt like tossing something............. generally your lunch. Somehow, I don’t think the space program is lined up to recruit this guy, unless maybe they are using monkeys again??? Who are we kidding, as long as the 17 year old dates, DAD will never sleep again without both eyes open, and his gun collection nearby!! “Come on honey, let me break the ‘no shooting’ rule, just this once .... please???” ~Michael S. Pauley
Now as I stare at the ceiling in my bedroom, waiting on the curfew time to elapse and the return of my daughter, I get nostalgic for my teenage years......only long enough to get scared for my daughter and livid at her date!! If she ever dated a guy like I was, ..... I would ...... I would .... Shoot the little @$!#@%. Since I am not allowed to shoot anyone, (my wife is rather strict on this rule), I now just hope that I did my job earlier in life by teaching her the basics. You know, the choke hold, the Bobbit fold and slice, the Chinese groin toss, and most importantly the 911 call. Now when I meet her date, I often just find comfort in knowing that sooner or later, my daughter is going to have kids just like her! Then maybe she can learn to tolerate the guy with the tattoo of a dragon’s butt on his forehead, the ring through the nose, the butch haircut, and a T-shirt that says “Hitler was a candy ass!”
In reality, the latter description has not happened yet. Most of the young men she brings by the house are clean cut, well behaved, and actually seem to be quite polite. THIS SCARES THE HELL OUT OF ME! At least the weirdo is visibly dangerous, the clean cut boys are more likely to be mass ax murderers with chainsaws in the trunks of their Dad’s cars. There was one boy she brought around the house who became my version of foot fungus. He was always there, impossible to get rid of, and extremely irritating. This chump had a laugh from hell. He would come in the house, eat anything not nailed down, and “wow” us with his great intellect.
On one particular evening, he was being unusually obtuse. (Hey, meathead, if you are reading this, obtuse means you were being stupid! Although, the odds of him reading this or anything more complex than a cereal box are probably real slim.) My daughter made the comment that something was “superfluous”. He responded with a resounding, “huh?” She then told him that “superfluous meant extraneous”, to which he again responded with, “HuuuuH??” Finally after several minutes of explanation, she told him that it was like adding something extra to a pizza that it didn’t need. To this day, I believe that he now thinks that superfluous means the same thing as an anchovy, you know a small fish, . . . . . . . . . . .
Another of his finer points was his laugh. The sound he made when he laughed cannot be found in nature! At first, but only at first, my wife and I would laugh when we heard him laugh. He would tell an awful unfunny story, but the minute he laughed we laughed as well. (Not with him, but at him. Sorry but you couldn’t help it!) This went on until we noticed that his laughter was not only infectious (like poison oak), but it also had the quality of fingernails going down a blackboard. It was like an episode from the twilight zone, this young man almost drove a whole city mad when he laughed ......... Whenever he was around the animals in the zoo would try to escape, and once the airport called us to complain about the noise. Imagine if you will the sound Bambi would make if you introduced him to a bull moose as a mating partner, or maybe what you would get if you crossed the sound of Woody Woodpecker being shoved into a food processor with a T. Rex eating a bus........ To put it simply, his laugh was just plain horrible.
Like a VERY bad sci-fi movie, the moment he walked into the house you immediately felt like tossing something............. generally your lunch. Somehow, I don’t think the space program is lined up to recruit this guy, unless maybe they are using monkeys again??? Who are we kidding, as long as the 17 year old dates, DAD will never sleep again without both eyes open, and his gun collection nearby!! “Come on honey, let me break the ‘no shooting’ rule, just this once .... please???” ~Michael S. Pauley
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