Image via Flickr
BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE. And now, for the first time, the cover of DAD MAGAZINE: THE BOOK, published by Quirk Books! It will be available for purchase on April 26, but is available for preorder RIGHT NOW at Amazon, IndieBound, and wherever fine books are sold:
My dad’s birthday is May 10th. Thank you for providing the perfect birthday gift. I shall pre-order as soon as I get home this afternoon. Boom, done.
Also my dad has discovered emojis. It is very strange. But also over Christmas my mom started a puzzle and my dad who has never in 67 years touched a jigsaw puzzle is now completely addicted. They finished it and got a new 1500 piece one to start. He sends me photo updates every day.
Is there someway I could get on the update email chain? I think I would love daily work in progress photos of a jigsaw puzzle. “Finally, they figured out that lower left corner! Now onto that center left cluster!”
I would also like to get in on this…
Clearly, Aravis’s dad needs to start a Tumblr so that all may partake.
My friend’s dad almost exclusively communicates with her in emojis. Like his message will be “dinner is ready” and she’ll have to understand the pictographs.
My dad is so good at emojis suddenly! He sent me a text message that communicated a message about the hilarity of Ben Carson becoming president so complex, it really can’t be translated into words.
I am really looking forward to the day my dad discovers emojis; I am sure it will be amazing. A couple of years ago he figured out text messages and I got a text that said ‘IFIGUREDOUTHOWTOTEXTICANTFINDTHESPACETHOUGH’
For years, my mom only sent single-word texts for that reason. Finally, she got a smartphone.
Fast paced technical innovation + parents is the gift that keeps on giving, really
A dad sending daily photo updates just fills my heart with silly joy.
OH MY GOD YEEEES PRE-ORDERING RIGHT NOW
Who else has a Dad who loooooves talking about how to drive to places? The second I moved to California, my Dad considered himself an ~expert~ on the freeway system and wants to talk about it AT LENGTH. He also has Strong Opinions About Uber, namely that I should only be using Uber Black because that’s what he uses and “why would I ride in someone else’s car.” We literally have a conversation about why that makes no sense for me EVERY TIME he picks me up at the airport at home.
My dad has no opinions about Uber, mostly because he is from rural Indiana, but he is famous for never taking the same route twice if he can help it. When I started driving, it took me forever to figure out how to actually get to places we went to all the time, because Dad was constantly finding new ways to get there and it just confused me.
My mother does this, with varying degrees of success. She’s allergic to routine and just loves driving down roads saying ‘No, no, I’m sure I know where this comes out.’
We have to remind her that her title of ‘supreme navigator’ is fine when you’re on a 5 month road trip around the country with all the time in the world to explore interesting looking back roads that may or may not be a dead end, but not quite so fine when you’re starving and just trying to get to the restaurant in time for your reservation.
I, on the other hand, am Queen of ‘I don’t know if this is the fastest way, but I guarantee you we won’t get lost.’
My partner and I are both bike couriers, and when we ride together we have the exact same argument every time – I am of the “getting lost saves no time” philosophy whereas he takes every single weird alley and cut through. Drives me nuts.
My dad actually really enjoys using uber/lyft/whatever just judging by the one time I took it with him when he got into a lengthy and technical discussion with our driver about the car we were in. He was unaware that whatever company it was made a hybrid of that particular model. Then he talked about his own new car and how it compared.
OMG my grandfather has opinions about how to get to every place. My grandfather will tell you how to drive somewhere even if you’ve been there a hundred times and he himself has never been there. And WOE BE TO YOU if you are on a road trip with him and you don’t take his preferred route. We always just go the way he wants to so as to avoid his passive-aggressive digs at our chosen, better alternative route.
My dad, however, is the total opposite. If he’s been there more than you have, he’ll have opinions. Otherwise, he literally could not care less, and he definitely does not want the responsibility of deciding the route.
My Dad has BIG opinions about “this way is longer but faster” and will give a breakdown on speed limits and number of traffic lights to justify his route.
When I drove cross-country, my dad was obsessed with knowing the route I planned to take (which wasn’t efficient, since it was planned in such a way that I stayed with friends and not in a hotel for 75% of the trip, but was economical). He was also equally concerned that during the four hours of the trip that involved me crossing into/out of Canada, I would somehow be involved in an incident that would lead to me being trapped in Canada forever.
My dad is born and raised and still lives in Pittsburgh, PA, a very very difficult place to drive at the best of times, and has So Many Opinions on how to get places, that he shares often with other dads in the vicinity.
Yinzer bonus points if the directions you give someone include a landmark that hasn’t existed in years (“Turn left where the XYZ used to be”); triple points if that landmark didn’t exist in your lifetime.
This is a big Massachusetts thing too!
There is a Pittsburgh Dad all about this and it is spot on.
My dad knows nothing about Uber but he LOVES talking driveway routes, probably because he was in sales and drove all over Southern California and has an exhaustive mental map of the area. The problem is that he is slightly bad about remembering names of things so his directions can be maddening. (It always works for HIM, because even if he gets a street name wrong he has the visual cues you lack.)
My dad usually considers himself an expert on navigating a city once he’s spent at least 5 hours there. I swear, I was living in Spain for 3+ years and he tried to tell me how best to get to another point in a city I lived in and he didn’t!
Thank you for providing us with a great Father’s Day gift, especially since most of us are stumped every year about what to buy.
Ask A Cool Dad
I didn’t know my dad had gotten a column in Dad Magazine! I’ll have to send him a congratulations card.
I love the “100 years of Dad Magazine” seal!
Yesss can’t wait for some quality vintage Dad content
It is now Hoth in our little pinky-finger of northern Michigan, and as some of you may remember, my dad gave us the Ultimate Dad Wedding Present of a decent, shiny snowblower. This was a frankly fantastic wedding gift and, as you might imagine, has been getting a fair bit of use of late.
My dad has been texting daily with helpful tips on snowblower operation.
“Nice to see you using the snowblower. Very gender neutral.” (This particular text sent MrChouffe into literally hysterical laughter.)
“How’s the blower working?”
[I send a photo of MrChouffe operating snowblower with appx 14″ of snow on the driveway.]
“I was just out there myself. Fucking plow truck filled in the road end 10 minutes after I came in.”
“Time to give that wedding present a good workout. A couple of tips from the old timer. Go slow, use first gear and don’t try and cut a full pass. I was just out and we’ve gotten 14-18 inches. Have a good time, love you.”
My dad is the best.
Very gender neutral.
I’m dying. I am dead.
Right?! I literally didn’t know my dad knew that term even
“Have a good time”
<3 <3 <3
Speaking as one who has hand-shoveled (uphill) a 400-meter driveway TWICE in the past week, your dad has A+++++ taste in wedding gifts. And good advice on snow-blowing technique as well!
Also, just to get this out of my system: FUCK THOSE PLOW TRUCKS THAT FILL IN YOUR DRIVEWAY WITH THEIR GODDAM PLOWED SNOW! And now it’s time to get out there again so the mailbox is shoveled out…
I did an internship at Quirk Books. <3 Love their stuff.
Alas, I am broke and cannot afford books of any kind at the moment.
My dad was constantly trying to get us to take shorter showers when I was a kid. He also went ballistic over how much TP we were using on a daily basis, especially when it would clog up the toilets. He made a rule – 1 square for #1 and 4 squares for #2. You can imagine how well that went over…and how long that rule lasted.
So excited to get the book – will order soon!
1 square! Ah, bless his heart and his ignorance about female urination.
My dad used to go through our trash to pick out (and then loudly educate us) all the recyclables. It was SO AWKWARD on a monthly basis.
This just reminded me: we have a small cardboard box serving as a cat bed in our apartment. The last time my dad visited, he seemed to think that this was our recycling box, and kept throwing empty soda bottles and TP rolls in there. It was so cute I didn’t really have the heart to tell him.
OH GOD yes, my entire childhood and also adulthood
The father of one of my high school friends went through a toilet paper rationing phase. I had no idea other dads did this too!
My grandfather instituted a similar TP rule with his six kids when they were little. (I don’t know how closely they adhered to it, but they’re definitely still talking about it 40+ years later…)
I bought my Dad socks for Christmas. Granted they are Uniqlo Heattech socks, which are truly amazing, but he has sent me two texts since I returned home about how much he likes them, including one with a photo of his feet in said socks. It is truly the most successful present I have given him, possibly even surpassing the birthday when my brother and I went in on BB King tickets.
I got my Dad socks for Christmas and he is ALSO raving about them! Best part is that he emailed me a link to the exact socks he wanted.
Ooh. The socks are good? I have the leggings–swear by them in the winter, as jeans are NOT warm enough on their own–and a shirt, and a pair of tights, but have not yet tried the socks. I’m going to have to get on that….
I swear by them. My feet are always cold in the winter but there have been times when wearing mine that my feet have actually been too hot (usually when I overreact and break them out above 40 degrees). I get the thin knee highs but my parents have both enjoyed the thicker, shorter pairs.
Last night, my dad called to congratulate me on passing my oral licensure exam. “Give yourself a big ‘ol pat on the back from me,” he says. “I will,” I reply. “Do it now! Are you patting your back right now!” And, yes, yes, I was. My father is the most enthusiastic dork about me and my brother’s achievements and I am glad that I am now old enough to appreciate the enthusiasm without being embarrassed by the dorkiness.
My favorite story about this was when I was trying to put together a powerpoint presentation for my thesis defense and was freaking out and had no motivation to do anything about the freaking out and called him. “It’s like Rocky!” He told me. “They’ve had you on the ropes, they’ve been beating you, but you just have to go one… more… round! You can do it. One more round!” And then he burst out singing “Gonna Fly Now” and I was like, “My dad is singing to me? He hasn’t sung to me since I was six!” And it was really awesome and toasties, I did get to work on my powerpoint. After downloading Gonna Fly Now.
I Love this. Such a great dad thing to do.
He sounds wonderful
On the morning of big tests my Dad would wake us up, rub our backs to “get the circulation going,” then sing the Rocky theme for motivation.
Awwww!
When I was in law school, my roommates and I had a “Dancing Hamster” with little boxing gloves that played the Rocky theme. We used to play it before exams for extra motivation. (Not quite the same, but it helped a bit).
Highway driving…well, aren’t you a fancy Dad. Really, if you can’t get there in a golf cart, is it even worth going?
“GET OFF THE HIGHWAY A EXIT EARLY!”
Please, my dad knew how to get there without ever taking that obvious, easy highway.
Highways are for SHEEPLE.
“You should know how to get anywhere using surface streets in case of emergency”
This ability actually came in handy after the 1989 California earthquake, when many roads were impassible. I’ve never seen a dad so pleased about a natural disaster
My dad prefers to program the GPS, and then disobey it with his own special route. It’s not about taking an unusual route or a rougher route, it’s about taking a different route than he’s told. He likes having someone to disobey with no consequences, I think.
I love disobeying the GPS! Because ugh I know it’s faster to get on the highway for a single exit but it’s so inefficient in my mind, and there’s always that weird traffic at that intersection, and maybe this is the first step in becoming a Dad?
Google wants me to get on the highway for one exit to get to work. I disobey that damn thing every day, and I love it. NO I WILL NOT.
My dad adamantly refused to get a GPS for the longest time, but finally gave in a few years ago. He named it Martha, I think mainly so he could tell it ‘I don’t care, Martha’ whenever he went off the planned route.
My mom also enjoys defying the prim British lady who narrates her GPS directions. A lifelong rebel and non-conformist…
IS YOUR DAD MY DAD (/are you my sister? I think she reads the Toast)
He does the exact same thing and just smiles wider and wider every time it tells him to make a legal u-turn.
This is my dad as well, but he also becomes FURIOUS when he ends up at a red light, like, what did you think was going to happen when you refused to get on the highway?
My dad left a voicemail message for me the other night, consisting of this: “Hey, hon, just wondered if you were watching that Angie Tribeca thing…well okay, bye!” I am bemused. He has never before called to ask me if I was watching a random TV show.
Ha! I just told my dad to watch Angie Tribeca, that show is a true firehose of Dad Jokes
so, i’ve always felt a little sad that my dad isn’t a Dad. BUT “Get off the Highway an Exit Early” feature is MY DAD. MY DAD IS A DAD TOO. Now I feel like i’m in the Dad club and it’s great.
The missing glasses & emoitcon thing on the book also make me wonder if my dad is simply aging into a Dad.
But really, my dad-turned-Dad usually does know a way. His inner compass for knowing where he is without ever having been a place before is uncanny.
I’ve always felt that my dad isn’t a Dad either! We don’t have the closest/best relationship, which may be why. But oh man, the shorter showers thing? THAT’S MY DAD. The bane of my existence when I lived with my parents! He just could not get it through his head that I have shampoo, conditioner, body wash, and then face wash. 4 whole steps! Plus, you know, long hair. “You should be in and out in 5 minutes.” “Yeah, that’s impossible, but thanks for playing!”
Oh, Dad.
Also, the lunges thing. Ahhhhh I have seen my dad do so many embarrassing things in the name of exercise.
My Dad insisted that water should be shut off between each step. Wet hair. Turn off water. Rub head with shampoo and body with soap. Turn water back on, short rinse. Turn water off. Condition hair. Turn water on for cold rinse. It seems during a shower, you should not be comfortable at any point otherwise you’re WASTING WATER.
Oh man, just imagine how COLD. All the goosebumps!
yes!!! mine got SPECIAL SHOWERHEADS that make this easier. which is confusing because couldn’t you also just turn it off with the normal faucet? why would it being on the showerhead make me any more likely to shiver through a miserable shower?
My Dad has an absolutely magical inner compass and I don’t know how he does it. I have an inner compass when walking places, but not when driving.
I was once lost in east Jesus nowhere, NC (really, eastern NC has places that are just stupid rural) with my mom and an Australian and my mom was so flustered she finally called my dad and was like “WE ARE LOST” and my dad was like “okay look around what do you see” “NOTHING BUT FUCKING COTTON FIELDS” “okay drive to the next intersection what do you see” “A ROADSIDE PRODUCE STAND AND A DIRT ROAD” “okay go left” *five miles later* “turn right” *suddenly we were in Raeford* “HOW DID YOU DO THAT?”
no idea. Dads just know.
My father-in-law is a long haul trucker, and I am 80% confident that I could read this story off to him and have him go “oh they were only a few miles outside of Raeford! I’ve been there.” before I got to the end of it. My husband and I are 100% certain that with a similar story in any part of Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Indiana, or Illinois, his dad would ID the location half-way through.
Meanwhile I get lost in video games despite a map HUD and an arrow in front of my face saying GO THIS WAY. Let us not discuss what happens in RL when there’s snow on the ground – I can barely find my own house.
Re: cool dad —
“Rainier Wolfcastle, star of McBain and the upcoming film ‘Help! My Son Is a Nerd!’.”
“My son returns from a fancy East Coast college and I’m horrified to find he’s a nerd.”
“I’m laughing already.”
“It’s not a comedy.”
My dad’s glasses are always missing! And he and my mother use text abbreviations like “ur” more than any person in my own generation. It’s a beautiful cover, congrats, guys.
Firewood: How Much is Too Much?
Trick question! NEVER ENOUGH. My dad brought us up a bunch over the holidays (even though we’d just bought a cord) and proceeded to examine the quality and dryness of our wood at length.
Yours, too?!
Every winter, my dad sends me pictures of the woodpile underneath his garage with the frantic caption ‘I think this is the year we run out!!!!’ Now that he’s discovered emojis, it’s usually accompanied by a worried face, a tree, a fire, and another worried face for emphasis.
He has never run out in the 15 years since my sister and I built that woodpile over the course of one terrible, frustrating summer. I think it may be magic.
There is a 50/50 chance that when I call home, my dad’s partner will answer and tell me “your dad’s out wood’n”. Dad doesn’t purchase wood – he goes bush and finds it. They’re clearing a heap of scrub land for a new development at the moment and dad is in wood collecting heaven.
(The other 50% of the time he’s out walking a dog. Not his dog – that gets walked first thing in the morning – someone else’s dog. He has business cards and everything.)
When I went home for Christmas, as soon as we got out of the car my sister and I had to inspect the new campervan and the wood pile. He has left instructions to his partner that if he dies, she isn’t allowed to let anyone take the wood because he collected it for her.
My wife’s dad has just had a wood burner installed. He gathers his own wood (of course) from volunteering in National Trust woodland, and was concerned about exactly how dried-out the wood has to be, and whether he could fast forward the process by, say, baking it in the oven. I suggested he could also build a periscope so he could monitor smoke production from the chimney from the comfort of his sofa… it is being built.
My dad has firewood that he has moved with him at least four times. He has packed firewood and loaded it into a moving truck. Because it’s the good stuff. Special occasion firewood for Thanksgiving and Christmas fires only. DADS!
“Get off the highway and exit early! We know a way!”
Back in the dark days before cellphones with gps my dad carried around a huge map book that contained detailed maps of not only our county, but several surrounding counties, and he would consult it constantly. We almost never took highways to anywhere if we could avoid it, only back ways. That book was like his Bible, he looked at it constantly. We couldn’t leave for a trip unless he had consulted it and planned out not one but several alternate routes. Now his phone has multiple gps, etc. apps, but his favorite, which he will tell you about extensively every time he uses it in your presence, updates and changes in real time to find the quickest route depending on traffic reports. His dream come true, honestly.
And typing up this comment I realized my obsession with maps /maybe/ stemmed from somewhere but I’m not gonna think about it too much.
I still have a Thomas Guide in the pocket of my seat in the car. I mean, I haven’t cracked it open since I got a smartphone, but I can’t bear to get rid of it.
YOU NEVER KNOW.
I still have one too. YOU NEVER KNOW.
My own dad’s version would go “Missing glasses? Well did you know that I can get a new pair for free from the VA? Check these out! They were FREE! Your mother thinks they’re ugly, but you can’t beat free.”
Not as good as free, but the cheap reading glasses from the drugstore. BINGO. Who cares what the look like?
“You can’t beat free” is a true Dad rallying cry.
My dad recently had cataract surgery (and therefore also corrected vision) and is singing the praises of cheap drugstore reading glasses.
I love how Efficiency! covers a lot of dad areas – waste reduction, energy efficiency (aka put a sweater on), time wasting, etc.
My dad is a big fan of prototypes – SO much more efficient to make a small model first.
My dad LOVES textspeak. This is probably because he still has a flip phone. That he clips to his belt.
I love these, I always get a little teary.
My dad has that shirt.
Oh man, that picture on the book cover! It’s perfect. My dad is a very, VERY serious Workshop Dad (ask me about the most beautiful coffee table in the world that he made for me) so in my head, Dad Magazine is like 50% that kind of stuff.
Tell us about the most beautiful coffee table in the world that your dad made for you, please!
you guuuuuuys
my dad got a cardigan for christmas – it’s grey and wool and has a shawl collar and pockets and you know the “boyfriend cardi” style? and he LOVES it. he is so proud of it, wears it everywhere and calls it his “Grandpa Sweater” – ofc his first grandchild was born Dec. 18 so he’s pretty into the grandpa thing, too (he adores babies – should’ve seen him with his niblings’ children over the years)
anyway it is really kind of adorable and also i’m envious of his fantastic cardigan (except it’s wool and i can’t handle wool)
My dad is not always the archetypal Toast Dad, but he reached Peak Dad this weekend. He had my mother send a group text to my sisters and me with a pun. So we received the following messages:
Mom: Dad has a joke for you all. I will give you the question now and the answer/punchline later.
Mom: Q: What do you get when you cross a snowman with a vampire?
Mom (three hours later): A: Frostbite
Oh my god the fact that he had your mother send the question and then the answer in a group text is just so amazingly Dad. My heart just grew 3 sizes.
THREE HOURS LATER
My dad always has a “shortcut” that has never ever been short but we did once almost hit a cow.
It just now occurred to me that the Jack Aubrey books are chock full of Dad jokes. The lesser of two weevils, come onnnn
I bought my dad the first Jack Aubrey book for Father’s Day years ago. He can quote the entire movie, too. It is 100% Dad.
Today is the best day. I’m going to go check the air in my tires in celebration.
Dad issue, anon for privacy. Had discussed taking a mother-daughter trip for mothers birthday. Well, apparently last time she went away for more then a couple days “Your Dad went bonkers”. Or translated his anxiety got really bad. So he wants to come on this trip. Which in theory I’m fine with. I’ve gone on enjoyable trips with just him. But this means that it’s now it’s a family vacation and I’m the single adult child. And the combined forces of Dads anxiety and Moms pushyness can be a lot. So, Dad mental health, and family vacations as adults, how do you deal?
Let mom decide what you want to do, let dad plan everything?
Okay, if Dad Magazine has been around for 100 years, I want to see the articles from, say, the introduction of the motor car, the telephone, widespread indoor plumbing, movies, television….
I have just realized: I am slowly turning into a Dad. Efficiency! Highways! Emoticons!
The advertised feature confuses me. There are cool dads?
How do people deal with dads who Don’t Get It? My dad is a good person, and generally very right-on and feminist, but he tends to get annoyed with me and my siblings for complaining about men, because he’s a nice man and he feels hurt by our implications that all men are bastards. (Note: we know they are not.) He was complaining on Facebook at the weekend about several female runners who had not responded to his friendly greeting when he was out for a run himself (as is, apparently, the runners’ code). I suggested that perhaps, instead of just being rude, they were doing what I sometimes do and automatically blocking out things said by strange men while running just in case they were insulting, and it was nothing to do with him personally. Today I followed it up with an article I’d seen about harassment while running and got what I felt was a very aggressive response, starting with “Sorry i thought this conversation ended a couple of days ago” and ending with “I know that women have had and continue to have a shit time but haranguing people that actually do give a fuck is possibly not the strategy for making things better”; I felt quite hurt by this. I get that sometimes it can feel bad when people are complaining about a group you belong to and when you think you’re not guilty of what they’re being accused of (I sometimes feel hurt when friends complain about white/cis people), but there are two points I try to rememember: it’s not personal, and making it about me is belittling and unfair to the person complaining, who has legitimate grievances; also, it’s an opportunity for me to reflect on my behaviour and think about ways I might have inadvertently done what they’re talking about, with a view to avoiding it in future. He sees all anger about men as an attack on him and gets cross and defensive, and it’s leading to a lot of stress.
Our dads sound similar. Mine tried to convince me that getting catcalls while running was a compliment, because once some women yelled “wooo!” at him while he was cycling and HE was fine with it. My dad also sees my anger about men as an attack on him and also gets angry and defensive.
I think your attitude is very insightful and generous. Has your dad ever considered that women can’t tell if he’s a threat or not? He might feel that he’s a good person and that his benevolence should be obviously visible to others, so everyone should react positively to him. This is what my dad thinks. (He is self-centered to the extent that he has a bit of a problem with theory of mind.)
Did you ever have a disagreement with your dad in which he eventually came around to your point of view? If you can look back on that and remember what kinds of tactics you used, that might help.
Apart from that, I don’t really have any tips. I have other issues with my dad besides this so my way of dealing with him is to interact with him as little as possible. I’m pretty sure that he has literally never changed his mind.
Now that my dad has finally upgraded his flip phone to a smart phone, he has started displaying more Dad tendencies. He still does not send me emoticons because he still does not text, but we do communicate almost exclusively in Line stickers now. He also created a Facebook account and enjoys providing daily updates to my mom about my brother’s and my profiles, and making jokes on things I share. He obviously explains his jokes in a subsequent comment just in case I don’t understand the joke.
You guys, the shower headline just reminded me of one of the most dad things my dad does. Ten years ago, he read that taking cold showers helps you to lose weight (it boosts your metabolism or something? idk). Afaik, he hasn’t taken a warm shower since and he has become an evangelist for cold showers
we’ve known for a while that since retirement, dad goes on a dawn/pre-dawn bike ride through a shopping center and then around a local park. We’ve also known that he collects any loose change he finds on these rides, including anything else he finds in the park. Once, mom had to talk him out of consuming a bag of candy he found on the ground. Mom also insists that all clothing found at the park goes straight into the donation bin on the corner. But just this week mom discovered that dad keeps a detailed journal, an account book, if you will, of every item he finds each morning. eventually this is going to be a bizarre and awesome anthropological project of a single square mile in our town, and its lost items. dad usually makes about $2 each morning in coins from the ground. a nice supplement to the social security check.
also, every time i show up to a family event, dad asks me what roads i took to get there. indeed, on Thanksgiving, he totally got off the freeway one exit before I did. he knew a way.
Dad Magazine makes me wish I had a Dad to send it too. Brother is quickly hurtiling towards Dad territory (obsession with Firewood is a big one, even though he doesn’t have a fireplace), but he’s only been a dad for 3 years so I don’t think he’d get it yet.
I actually sent this picture to my dad because his constant exhortations to shower faster (and take "navy showers" where you get wet, turn the water off to wash, then turn it back on just to rinse) like he does were an overarching theme of my childhood. No time allowances were made for the fact that I have long curly hair, and starting at puberty, a lot of social pressure to shave 50% of my total surface area.
He texted back "Sign me up. Hey, you know, if you wait till after you work out and shower at the Y, it's *free*. And they have free soap!"
So it's definitely a dad thing for some dads.
I just realized my boyfriend has Premature Dad Syndrome. It's mostly lovable but sometimes maddening. He seems to have a bird's eye, zoomable map of our entire metropolitan area in his head, and he enjoys telling me about The Best Way to Go at length. I don't drive, by the way. I have lots of opinions about driving, though, because it's contagious and I am more of a dad type than a mom type.
My dad and I were just discussing an article from the Efficiency Issue: Why Make Four Trips or Pay $5 for a Luggage Cart When You Can Carry Everything and Make One Trip? Unfortunately we have both learned the answer to what was supposed to be a rhetorical question: our bodies have limits. My arms are still achy. (I'm neither male nor parent but I am such a dad.)
Every month I email Dad Magazine to my dad. This was his response this month (note that he is very recently retired):
Thanks!!! (I understand that you youngsters have a tendency toward the gratuitous overuse of exclamation points — so enthusiastic!!!)
I love reading the comments about dads that know the best ways to get to places. Coincidentally, your mom and I were talking about this just this morning. Your mom read a breaking story this morning that there had been a fatal shooting at a motel at I-25 and Osuna. She normally goes right by there on her way to bowling and she was worried about traffic delays and needed another route. I was able to recommend getting off at Paseo, traveling west to Second Street and heading south until she hit Osuna whereupon she could resume her normal route. She agreed that this was far better than her other alternate route ideas. Then I talked with her about being a kid in Pittsburgh and my uncles would gather on the back porch with a beer in hand and debate the best ways to get from here to there. Since ABQ streets are configured as a grid and especially since the advent of GPS and Google Maps, there is little call for such routing debates here. I’m glad to have been able to engage in a little nostalgia from my youth this morning. And what a coincidence!!!
The follow up email:
Also, FYI — I just now got to the “dads in Pittsburgh direction comments”. See what I mean???
Later in the chain, he asked me how to copy/paste on his new Mac. DADS
Tell us about the most beautiful coffee table in the world that your dad made for you, please!
I read this book and its really nice book edition i love this thanks for share it rate my paper .
I read this book and its really nice book edition i love this thanks for share it rate my paper .