Mom and I ran into my Dad at the Subway on Cook Road yesterday. We had stopped there for dinner on the way to a play in Bellingham, and while we were eating, low and behold, in walks Dave Button!Mom gave him the other half of her sandwich, but she complained about it later when she didn’t have anything to snack on. Dad tried to steal half of my sandwich as well, but I called him out on it as he was trying to shove it in his pocket.
Me: “What if Mom and I weren’t here tonight? Would you have starved?”
Dad: “No, I would’ve taken a bite of someone else’s sandwich…”
Me: “That’s not even funny, because you probably would!”
Dad: “You wouldn’t believe how much food people waste! I’m just doing my part to help the environment.”
Of course I also teased him about his hair hat that makes him look like he has doll hair on the top of his head. I asked him why he even bought such a hideous hat, and he said, “What do you mean, ‘why’? I’m losing my hair and I have a snaggle tooth. When you get to be my age and start losing your teeth and your hair, then you will understand. The top of my head gets cold!”
Me: “First of all, most women don’t get bald spots on top of their heads, and even if I ever do, I still would never wear a hat with doll-hair on it! I would wear my Seahawks beanie to cover my bald spot, and to keep my head warm, and where is your Seahawks beanie by the way? I would also purchase dentures that fit my mouth; if and when I begin to lose my teeth. I wouldn’t be like George Washington and carve a new tooth out of wood.”
As if on cue, Dad took his partial denture out of his mouth at the table, in order to remove a piece of lettuce. With one of his front teeth missing out of his mouth he said, “I don’t wear dentures; I wear a partial and it fits my mouth fine…”
Mom and I cracked up.
Me: “Dad, you just said yourself that you have a ‘snaggle-tooth’ and the one tooth that is a snaggle-tooth, is the only tooth in your mouth that isn’t real. It’s bigger than your other teeth! Did you get it in Mexico or something? Did you steal it off of a horse?”
Dad, still missing one of his front teeth, replied, “Jeesh! We’ve got a feisty one here tonight, Margaret…”
Mom: “You have to be careful with what you say to Whitney, because everything you say can and will be used against you on her blog.”
Dad: “I’ve seen some of the blogs that she’s written about you, and they’re not very flattering. They’re not all true, are they…?”
Mom grinned sheepishly: “Well…yes.”
Dad laughed: “I guess you can’t blame her for writing about it then, huh?”
Mom shrugged and smiled.
Me: “Mom you secretly love it. I’ve practically made you famous!”
Mom: “Yeah, famous for farting.”
Dad: “Ladies don’t pass gas. You don’t really pass gas that much, do you Margaret.?”
Again Mom grinned sheepishly: “Well…yes.”
Dad and I cracked up.
When I showed Mom and Dad the pictures on my phone, Mom said, “Oh god, why didn’t you tell me how awful my hair looked!”
Dad said, “My hair looks GREAT!”
Me: “Dad, seriously? It looks like Davy Crocket made a coonskin cap out of possum roadkill, and now you are proudly displaying it on top of your head.”
Dad: “My customers love it! They say that it gives me character.”
Me: “Dad, you ARE a Character! You don’t need anything to give you MORE character.”
Dad: “Well that’s about the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me!”
Me: “Do your cats get frightened when they see you wearing your hair-hat? They might think that you will make a hat out of them next…”
Dad: “Have you met our new cat, Sammy? She’s so cute!”
Me: “You mean the one that you make me talk to over the phone? The one that you spayed twice?”
Mom: “You spayed her twice?! How in the world did that happen?!”
Dad: “Well I didn’t do it on purpose. We adopted her, and we didn’t know that she was already spayed, so she ended up getting spay-ded twice. Poor little thing. She was so upset about it.”
Me: “Of course she was upset! She got spay-ded twice! How would you feel if you got spay-ded twice, huh? Never mind, don’t answer that question…”
Dad: “Since I am a male I would have gotten neutered, and I wouldn’t have enjoyed it one bit! You should be glad I wasn’t neutered, because where would you be right now if I had been neutered, huh?”
Me: “…and that’s the part of the conversation that I was hoping to avoid.”
Dad: “You should be nice to your Mom and I, because without us, where would you be…? Also, don’t forget that you still break the record for being the youngest person to ever float down the river. How old was she, Margaret?”
Mom: “6 weeks.”
Dad: “Wow, 6 weeks old. How did you grow up so fast, Whit?”
Me: “It’s amazing that I grew up at all, considering that you dangled me over the side of the raft when I was 6 weeks old, just like how the Crocodile Hunter dangled his baby over a giant crocodile and made everyone get all up in an uproar!”
Dad: “I never dangled you over the side of the raft, and I sure as heck never dangled you over a crocodile! I held you in one of those backpacks on my chest, and everyone just couldn’t believe how cute you were! Margaret, do you remember when you were pregnant with Whitney and we all got hit by a semi truck…?”
Mom: “How could I ever forget that? My water broke just a few days later and I almost lost her!”
Me: “Dad, I heard that after the crash, you got out of the Checker and your shoulder was obviously dislocated, and even though Mom kept asking you if you were okay, you just kept insisting that you were just fine. Then you walked a couple of steps and fainted right into the ditch.”
Dad: “I never fainted; I’m a man! Besides, I don’t remember fainting…”
Me: “Of course you don’t remember it; you were passed out!”
Dad: “Well if I remember right, the semi truck had actually crashed into the side of the Checker, and parked itself on top of my mother-in-law’s feet. You would pass out too if you saw your mother-in-law stuck under a semi truck!”
Me: “I’m sure that you’re right about that.”
In the end, it was a very sweet little visit, and it was nice to see my Mom and Dad together and enjoying each others company. I have absolutely no photos of the 3 of us together, and now (thanks to one of the Subway employees who was nice enough to snap a few pics for us) I have a photo that sums the 3 of us up pretty perfectly:
Dad giving the ‘thumbs up’ in his crazy hat with doll hair sticking out of the top. Mom sporting a sweet smile while proudly wearing her Native sweatshirt. And me, standing between the two of them, looking a little bit like both of them, with a smile that says, “I still don’t understand how the 2 of these people ever got together and made a baby, but they did, and now that I’m a (somewhat normal) grownup I get to tease the crap out of both of them, and it’s glorious!”
And that, my friends, is called Sweet Revenge…
(Go ahead and try dangling me over the side of the raft now, Dave Button!)
