Dad Magazine: October 2015 Edition

by Jaya Saxena and Matt Lubchansky · October 19, 2015

dadmagoct

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Jaya Saxena is a New Yorker who writes for lots of things. The Toast, Uncommon Courtesy, and New Amsterdam Mystery Company are some of them. Follow her on Twitter @jayasax. Matt Lubchansky makes comics and occasionally leaves his apartment in New York. His work includes Please Listen to Me and New Amsterdam Mystery Company. He’s on Twitter, and doesn’t expect you to get his name right.


119 Comments

  1. gull_wing +94

    Some great #dad #content this month:

    “Where is the poop emoji on my phone?”
    “Barack Obama is like the black Pierre Trudeau.”
    “Home Depot: what a great place for tools” – half to himself watching a commercial for it

    1. Beakses +12

      My father has recently acquired the world’s smallest tractor which is still a real tractor, which he has outfitted with a drive over mower deck and something called a “cyclone rake” which is basically a tractor sized vacuum cleaner for the lawn (which to be fair is several acres of gentleman farmland). Peak dad leaf management, right there.

  3. frankie0darling +86

    My partner (who is seven apparently crucial pop-culture years older than I am) had to explain to me who and/or what Magnum, P.I. was last night – a task he punctuated with incredulous exclamations as to my ignorance and several lengthy paeans to Tom Selleck’s facial hair. I take it that this means he is Ready For Fatherhood?

    1. bighairnoheart +57

      Either that or he’s secretly my mother. I’m pretty sure that mustache was her sexual awakening.

      1. PaigePoo +23

        I’m (unfortunately) sure that mustache was my mother’s sexual awakening. She makes me watch Blue Bloods with her every time I go to visit, and she still sighs over that mustache!

      2. Mrs_Peel +12

        Was your mother by any chance my Latin teacher (who had posters of Tom Selleck plastered around our classroom)?

    2. ipomoea +8

      I thought Mr Ipomoea might cry when I told him I’d never seen Columbo and didn’t get a reference he’d made.

  5. ppyajunebug +97

    You guys, my Dad goes to a conference every year (in the summer) where he is forced to dress up based on whatever the company has chosen as the theme. Since they were in San Diego this year, it was Dr. Seuss. Luckily, he visited a month before and we got him a Cat in the Hat hat.

    But one year…one year there was a planned flash mob with a choreographed dance he had to learn

    Tragically, the results are not on YouTube

    1. bird_internet +54

      My dad would 100% just go home if such a thing were proposed to him. He’s still talking about the time we were in a diner and a grown man wearing one of those goofy winter hats with colorful spikes on it came and sat at the booth next to ours and didn’t even take off the hat when he started eating. Not just a hat at the table, but a hat that purposefully makes him look like a fool! Can you believe it! He has definitely lightened up now that he’s older (his favorite shirt has a picture of a wine bottle on it and says “I’m not getting old, I’m becoming more complex!’) but I still cannot picture him dancing under any circumstances.

      On the other hand, the school where my mom teaches made all the teachers do a choreographed dance to “Call Me Maybe” a few years ago, and it is definitely on youtube.

    2. ppyajunebug +39

      I WAS WRONG, I WAS SO WRONG, IT IS ON YOUTUBE

      GLORY AT THE SIGHT OF DOZENS OF MIDDLE AGE, MOSTLY WHITE FOLKS ATTEMPTING TO FOLLOW A CHOREOGRAPHED DISCO DANCE IN COSTUME (I couldn’t find my dad in the video, maybe he escaped somewhere)

    4. tragicallyludicrous +12

      Wow. And I thought my dad’s company was intense for making him do karaoke. (His song was House of the Rising Sun. Sadly, I never got to see it. Unless my brother’s wedding is going to have karaoke at it or something.)

      1. mbculver +3

        My uncle and I have birthdays 2 days apart, and when I was a kid we always had family celebrations together. That stopped when the kids grew up, but was briefly revived for my 25th/uncle’s 50th as I was visiting home at the time. We all went to karaoke, and my dad did a showstopping rendition of House of the Rising Sun. Such a #dad song.

        (My cousins yelled Love Shack, my aunt and uncle tried to sing I Got You Babe, and I hid in a corner and drank.)

    5. lundelizabeth +3

      I work for a company that throws an annual conference. I am eternally grateful that it never, ever involves costumes.

  6. houblonchouffe +69

    Any day now, my dad is going to start the annual “When are you going to get a fireplace insert to save all the heat from your woodfire IT WILL HEAT YOUR WHOLE HOUSE” conversation.

      1. houblonchouffe +18

        Augh, I need to get wood delivered soon. The last two years we’ve managed to have it arrive just as the first blizzard of the year hit, as in, stacking it as the snow began falling.

        Instead of the insert, we are seriously considering getting a mason to come out and estimate how expensive/inconvenient it would be to punch through the back of the chimney and into the library, so that we have a fireplace that is enjoyable from both of the two rooms we use most frequently. Efficient? Probably not, but so pretty.

          1. Unreadaethel +2

            Stoves and full fireplaces, yes, but I don’t believe there are actually any double-sided inserts for masonry fireplaces.

          2. houblonchouffe +1

            If we went that route it would be a box insert. Our current fireplace has a metal firebox mounted in a block wall.

        2. femmefan1946 +1

          Terrible idea.
          I’ve sold stoves, furnaces,and inserts. I even have a certificate from the Province of Ontario.
          The basic problem is the chimney flue size. It has to be able to handle both sides being open at once or the fireplace will smoke. So you need a stainless steel liner in excess of 16 ” in diameter.
          Round.
          Which probably won’t fit in your current masonary flue which might be at most 12 ” square, but is probably smaller.
          (Actually, it will smoke even if the flue is technically big enough. But the manufacturers won’t tell you that. )
          You could try installing two inserts back to back each with its own 8″ stainless steel liner.
          I’ve lost track of prices, but each will cost you over $3000 with the liner.
          And get a building permit. No permit? No house insurance.
          Make sure your insurance company knows you are installing the insert. If you don’t tell them, you have no house insurance. Even if you keep paying them. And no, they won’t give your premiums back when they find out.
          Don’t do your own installation. It’s one of those things, like drywalling, that are worth having a professional do for you.
          And don’t forget to extend the hearth. Most fireplaces suck heat and only require a 12″ hearth. Stoves give heat, and require an 18″ hearth.

          Have you considered an electric, gas or even alcohol fire? They can be convincingly pretty.

          Generally , we told people in Ontario/Quebec (temperatures of minus 40 were rare but not unusual in winter) that wood was cheaper than electric heat anywhere and cheaper than oil heat in the country. If you had gas heat, it was cheaper than wood.

      1. houblonchouffe +3

        oh my god

        This sounded so much like conversations that have happened between my dad and MrChouffe I could cry. Except for the cat part; my dad is not a cat person and I don’t think MrChouffe would give up either of our cats for all the firewood in the world.

    3. Unreadaethel +7

      But it will! Open fireplaces are a net heat loss, since you can’t control the air intake! And heating your whole house may be an exaggeration, but Papa Chouffe is mostly correct here.

      /fireplace nerd

      1. houblonchouffe +5

        <3

        I know he is, but in addition to inheriting his eye color and bone structure, I also got his Stubborn-As-Fuck genes. 🙂

    1. sagerenee +17

      You know, I don’t think I have either. I did once convince the Mister to dress up for a Halloween themed wedding. He wore a trench coat and a fedora with a “Press” pass in it. Such a wild and crazy guy.

    2. lemontx +14

      There’s a rumor in my family that when my parents were first married, my mom talked him into dressing up as a lady for Halloween, pantyhose, wig, and all. Tragically, there are no photos.

    3. elsajeni +31

      My dad has worn the same Halloween costume every year for roughly 20 years: the tunic out of a storebought Fred Flintstone costume and an unrelated rubber horror mask. I think the Fred Flintstone tunic might have finally become too ratty in the last couple of years, so he may have to pick out… a new costume. (No, actually he will go buy an identical replacement tunic, and then I can spend some time razzing him about failing to follow his own advice, which is to always buy three of any article of clothing you really like.)

    4. GreenGrasses +7

      Yeah me neither 🙁

      I also, now that I think about it, don’t think I’ve ever heard my dad sing. Weird.

      1. thesarahgirl +3

        I have heard my dad sing a lot! He’s been in various choirs (church, community, etc.) since I was little 🙂

    5. ofTrebond +36

      My father once dressed up as a monk, tonsure cap and all, as part of a skit for church he wrote with another dad (probably about the stewardship fund).

    6. bighairnoheart +30

      My dad has worn the same Halloween costume for as long as I can remember. A long, atmospheric overcoat from his West Point days and a rubber mask that looks like a skeleton wearing a top hat. It takes ten seconds to put on. He’s won prizes for it. I’m someone who plans costumes months in advance and I hate it more than a little.

    9. raqueue +12

      I have never ever ever seen my Dad in a proper costume (he did make us amazing contest winning costumes as kids)

      My parents used to throw elaborate Harry Potter parties for my younger siblings, and he would always go as a “house elf” and wear a shapeless cloak.

    10. gripyfish +66

      My dad used to dress up/plan elaborate Halloween parties back in the day (the finest example of such being the time in college he made a wax cast of his own face so he could set up his own funeral tableau…while going to the actual party as a vampire in a swooshy cape), but I don’t think he’s worn a costume for anything since I was…12, maybe?

      Unless going to Jimmy Buffett concerts in a garish Hawaiian shirt counts as a costume, that is.

      ETA: my dad put a picture of the funeral tableau on Facebook as his “October TBT”, so please enjoy some vintage Halloween Dadding (or pre-Dadding as he didn’t have kids yet?) from 1978:

    11. OpheliaInWaders +22

      Every Halloween when I was a kid, my dad dressed up as “Brussels Sprout Man,” which entailed wearing his olive-green winter beanie (and whatever else he was already wearing). We fell for that one for a loooooong time.

    12. tragicallyludicrous +3

      I’ve seen pictures of my father in costume, since he and my mom do tend to go out for Halloween and he’s not embarrassing my mother by not participating, and I must have seen one of them in person but I can’t remember doing so.

      1. thesarahgirl +3

        I think that’s part of it, he and my mom are not the partying type at ALL; I can’t recall them ever going to a Halloween party/event.

    13. sarah_jay +4

      The only “costume” my dad ever wore was a lab coat and goggles, which were left over from his chemical engineering days.

    14. Unreadaethel +45

      My mom made my dad a lovely reversible black-and-scarlet satin vampire cape, and he wears it to teach every Halloween. This is fantastic enough on its own, but he also commutes the two blocks to his office on a razor scooter. While wearing a bike helmet and elbow pads. And the cape.

    15. coloredlights +6

      I haven’t either. My dad does not do costumes. My mother is an actual professional costume designer and Halloween is my favorite holiday, so my dad basically disappears into yardwork and ignores us for the entire month of October.

    16. AliceIsHopeless +13

      My parents went to a lot of costume parties before I was born, always in very elaborate home made costumes. My dad is Very Sensible but was so in love with the Mr Squiggle costume my mum made him that he allegedly wore the pencil nose for a week. And obviously used it to sneak up on people and poke them with it.

    17. RudyRed +5

      You know, now that I think about it I don’t think I’ve ever seen my dad in costume IRL either.

      There is, however, a picture of him from his college years in full drag. He did a pretty good job, too.

    18. Canary +13

      My dad never dressed up for Halloween, but every Christmas morning until I was in college he would quietly wear a red velour sweatsuit and Santa hat. He never said anything about it, but I never saw that sweatsuit any other day of the year.

    19. ipomoea +13

      I have seen pictures of my dad’s 1970s costumes. Most notoriously the year he and mom went as Adam and Eve, in flesh-colored boydsuits with maple leaves strategically hot-glued to them. That was one of the years they rented the town community center out for their party and the costume contest prize was “a lid of acid”.

      I kind of understand why they feared my teen years– I had a lot to live up to.

    20. cleoreads +5

      I don’t think I have either. One year, after I’d moved out, my parents went to a costume party and he dressed as Charlie Chaplin and even shaved his mustache to look like CC’s. Apparently it was very convincing. But the next day he realized that without the costume, he looked like too much like Hitler, so he shaved the whole thing off.

    21. isabelcooper +10

      Mine used to go as Waldo. By which I mean “put on jeans and a striped long-sleeved shirt” as he already had brown hair and wore glasses.

    1. isabelcooper +6

      When I was looking for apartments, there was totally a point where I realized that haunted was not necessarily a dealbreaker if utilities were included.

      Not full-on kill-everyone-while-speaking-in-strange-voices-twins-in-the-hallway haunted, obvs, but if I could get heat thrown in, I would be so fine with the occasional phantom voice and/or grey lady. Bleeding walls…I mean, are we talking real blood that I have to clean up? Because if it’s ectoplasm and fades away, then I will absolutely take that in exchange for landlord-paid heating.

  10. threatqualitypress +60

    oh god I have a Magnum PI costume, I went as Magnum PI for halloween one year oh god my youth will never return

  11. bighairnoheart +86

    SPREADSHEETS

    Coloneldad firmly believes that there is not a problem on this earth that cannot be solved with spreadsheets. Can’t decide on a college? Spreadsheet. Money issues? Spreadsheet. Dating problems? Spreadsheet. Can’t pick a haircut? Spreadsheet. Plotting a trip? Spreadsheet. World hunger? Spreadsheet.

    2. threatqualitypress +14

      I got to say…spreadsheets are really good.

      They’re like charts that do their own math!

    3. daisymerolling +17

      literally my father.
      He made a spreadsheet to try to convince me to be an engineer but I was like nopenopenopenopenope

      1. walrathem +38

        Which should be obvious because if you were meant to be an engineer you would have already done the spreadsheet.

    4. Alli525 +8

      One of my favorite NYC friends – who I believe will be a top-notch dad one day – is obsessed with spreadsheets, and has converted our entire friend group. Now we can’t go anywhere as a group without shared spreadsheets for who’s driving, who’s bringing what snacks, what games we want to play, etc. It’s wonderful. (I was already a fan of Excel but had never participated in a group trip so complex that it required spreadsheets. And that includes the time I was the coordinator for my diocese’s Young Adult pilgrimage from N. Carolina to Washington D.C.)

    5. diaryofamadeditor +10

      Truuuuuuuuuuttth. My dad wanted to me to keep track of candy bar sales for a middle school fundraiser on a spreadsheet. And I had to explain that I don’t have reorder quantities or profit margins for the 7th grade school musical. I just get a box of candy, and I have to come back with an empty box and fifty bucks or whatever.

      Also, a terrific bit from the internet archives: Open Letter to My Son about Excel http://www.8bitdad.com/2013/08/21/an-open-letter-…

      1. Zach Rosenberg +6

        Yo, I wrote that Open Letter to My Son About Excel. Just wanted to say thanks for the mention!

          1. Zach Rosenberg +1

            Yeah, I saw this page pop up in the site referrals and figured I’d stop in just to show some gratitude for linking back to my stuff!

  12. sausagedog +18

    Instructions for going as Magnum, P.I.:
    Take wine cork (recycle from your zinfandad!)
    Burn the flat end over a flame
    Draw on thick black mustache with your new drawing tool! Now you’re Halloween-in’!
    Optional: vocally fret over whether store-bought facepaint will irritate your child’s skin

    1. Chazz_Goodtimes +9

      I don’t know, I think you need to add at least a detroit tigers hat and/or a floral print shirt to round the costume out. Khaki shorts with 5 inch inseam if you really want to go the extra mile.

    2. chiaroscuromom +7

      Luxuriant chest hair required for optimal effectiveness. To be displayed under a partially-buttoned aloha shirt and shorts (not knee-length pants).

  13. evieskye +31

    My dad was not a costume guy (except for childhood where he was Andy Panda for four years straight)
    However, he was really into Snoopy and loved the Great Pumpkin special. So when I was very little (like 3 or 4) my parents would buy a pumpkin and have a neighbor leave it on the porch, ring the doorbell during dinner and run away. We’d go outside and see that the Great Pumpkin had left us a pumpkin (with a note on it… in my dad’s handwriting). Then we carved it, of course. Following my dad’s rules I still make jack-o-lanterns with ears (you have to stick them in with toothpicks).

  14. Chazz_Goodtimes +11

    Perfect timing – I’ve just been informed that the halloween party I’ll be attending with my 16 month-old daughter is costumes for adults too. Assuming I can’t pull off Magnum PI (I can’t), does going as a cowboy just scream ‘I put no effort or thought into this’?

    1. bethanykj +5

      IMO if you have a 16 mo daughter, that is an ok thing to scream. Or just do it aggressively and be 3-hole-punch version of Chazz.

    2. walrathem +20

      If you go as a cowboy and the baby is a cow it will be so cute it won’t matter how much effort you put into it.

      1. Chazz_Goodtimes +1

        Damn it – this is a great idea. Unfortunately my daughter is already going as a dragon, BUT I was able to find a hoodie on Amazon with dragon eyes / spikes on the hood, so I think I’m good.

        1. Smug_the_Dragon +4

          You could go as a princess or a knight

          These are both good Dragon themes.

          (Dragon and baby Dragon is also a good theme though)

          oooh, or a Hobbit.

  15. urspostrophe +34

    My dad one year opened the door on Halloween night wearing a grotesque groundhog/chipmunk(?) mask, but he had to take it off after small children kept bursting into tears.

  16. middlemarch +114

    I won’t believe that Dad Magazine is truly representative of the Dad Community until I see a headline about Why Would Anyone Need More Than One Gig of Data Per Month?!???

    1. bird_internet +65

      Subtitle: What do you mean you’re using the internet to watch TV? If you want to watch TV, I’ll buy you a damned TV!

    3. beecaveroad +21

      For ultimate accuracy (re: my dad) constantly confuse the storage space on the phone, the amount of Internet data we get with our phone plan, and WiFi (just for good measure). Every time you figure out the difference, they start advertising some confusing new spec that just muddles it all up again.

    4. Lady_Honoria +19

      This Computer Has More Memory Than the One That Flew Man to the Moon: So Quit Asking for a Better One

  17. flying_ghoti +112

    I was supposed to become a Dad Magazine subscriber yesterday and the dang kid is late*. But wait… does complaining about my kid being late for something automatically qualify me to be a Dad?

    * and also the entire concept of the “due date” is a useless fiction that should be abandoned

    1. Fightyoctopus +1

      1. Yes.
      2. If the dadmaker hasn’t made their appearance yet, don’t worry… There’s a 75% chance of labor starting by 41 weeks! Only 3% are born on their due date anyway.

  18. Harahel +21

    My dad was a kindergarten teacher for many many years and his costumes were always on point and awesome. My favorite being the year he did the Johnny Depp version of Willy Wonka, complete with creepy white makeup.

  20. JGlows +11

    I guess my husband and I are dads now, because I love spreadsheets and he is a tightwad who hates the heating bills for our old farmhouse.

  21. logicbutton +82

    The only costume I can remember my dad ever wearing that was more extensive than some kind of headwear was this one time when I was a kid, when he burst into the room wearing all his goldenrod clothing and shouted, “IIIIIIT’S MISTER SUNSHINE!!!”

    It was not Halloween.

    2. Perdita McLeod +19

      On top of everything else I am delighted that your dad had multiple articles of goldenrod clothing.

  22. beecaveroad +13

    My mother convinced my father to go as Julius Caesar to her Cleopatra when they were invited to some fancy costume party when I was a kid (they rented the costumes! they came with accessories! it was Major) and I think that was enough costuming for him for about two decades.

      1. beecaveroad +13

        wait. omg I wish. My parents do share a little bit of the irrepressible spirits/long suffering fond bemusement dynamic of Phryne/Jack though, i.e. the dynamic that leads to dads in elaborate costumes involving tunics.

        1. caatness +10

          My parents also share this, and it has become decidedly more pronounced as they age. And she has a Phryne Fisher way of bursting into a room in a hat. They are pretty cute. I have decided that this is a good dynamic for het parents.

  23. highfivesforall +40

    My dad was The Bermuda Triangle for halloween one year – he cut out a triangle of blue cardboard, crashed some toy planes and boats into it, and hung it around his neck. Also I believe there were some question marks scattered across it.

  24. angrypedestrian +19

    My mom (who lives in the cold, wintery north of Syracuse, NY) keeps the thermostat between 60 (for the fall) and 62 degrees (after it starts snowing) all winter. Her house is old and poorly insulated, but she refuses to budge it. My brother still lives with her, and apparently what he does now is just stand by the thermostat, look at it, and then look at my mom while sighing.

    My mom laughs in his face and tells him no.

    1. mbculver +8

      We have family friends who used to live just down the road in Ithaca and kept their heat that low or lower in the winter. One day a friend of theirs walked into their house, slapped $5 on the dining table, and said, “Turn the dang heat up!”

  25. Emby +28

    I want to read profiles of the coverdads!
    Like, “this month’s coverdad is Marcus. He likes sprinkler maintenence and pellet stoves!”

  26. zoeccoleman +27

    The one time I’ve ever seen my Dad dress up is for when his barbershop group (‘Tone Cold Sober’) put on a Les Mis performance. I’ll never see the like again (he’s the one doing the stabbing)

  27. caatness +9

    Prior to my arrival, my parents passed the time as coked-up disco bunnies who knew every gay bar in Houston. Their photo albums are fantastic (except for feeding beer to their cats – not cool, y’all). However, with the advent of children, my dad stopped with the costumes overall, to my dramatic little child-heart’s chagrin. The only year I recall my dad dressing up is the year he planned and helped build a haunted house at my middle school. He wore a deep-hooded brown robe with red LED lights for eyes, and this was aaaaaaaaaaaaaages ago, before such a thing was a thing. I was suitably impressed, and he has coasted on that one costume for a long.

    Now that he has a granddaughter, I have informed him he gets a pass this year, and next year, he’s going to be Daddy Pig, from Peppa Pig. Or possibly a My Little Pony. Maybe Apple Jack. I haven’t decided.

  28. robothobbit +28

    I just want to note that Peak Dad has been reached, My Dad has found out about Dad Jokes and thinks it means anything funny. So now he goes around telling regular jokes and saying mildly amusing G.K. Chesterton quotes and then adds proudly, “Hashtag Dad Jokes!”

    (I suppose he’s technically correct in that sometimes they are jokes and he has sired offspring.)

  29. bookwormV

    There is a full-frontal photo of my dad juggling naked on a beach in France, in pride of place in our living room. It is slightly pixellated, but not enough. I have stopped noticing it, but new visitors have not.

  30. Bittersweet

    My uncle and I have birthdays 2 days apart, and when I was a kid we always had family celebrations together. That stopped when the kids grew up, but was briefly revived for my 25th/uncle's 50th as I was visiting home at the time. We all went to karaoke, and my dad did a showstopping rendition of House of the Rising Sun. Such a #dad song.

    (My cousins yelled Love Shack, my aunt and uncle tried to sing I Got You Babe, and I hid in a corner and drank.)

  31. Bittersweet

    We have family friends who used to live just down the road in Ithaca and kept their heat that low or lower in the winter. One day a friend of theirs walked into their house, slapped $5 on the dining table, and said, "Turn the dang heat up!"

  32. ifsolitude

    I work for a company that throws an annual conference. I am eternally grateful that it never, ever involves costumes.