RaisingDad

It was good to see everybody at my Dad's family reunion.      "Can we leave now?" I asked my wife.      If looks could kill there wouldn't have been anyone alive within a thousand-mile radius.      I can't get over it. According to the Law of Diminishing Returns, for every year that passes there should be less people at these reunions, but instead there always seems to be MORE . And all those additional family members are hard on my Dad, who doesn't consider his trip a success until he's unintentionally insulted every relative there. And some who aren't.      "Stand up straight," he told the wife of one of his brothers as she walked past him.      She's has osteoporosis.      "Are you pregnant?" he asked one of his nieces.      She's close to 60.      "Well, she looked pregnant," he shrugged...

After eating all of my wife's breakfast and even some of mine, my Dad goes into the bathroom of the hotel room we're staying in to get ready for this special day. He's in there for over an hour.      Over an hour!      I don't know what he's doing in there, especially since he was already in there for half the night keeping my wife and I awake with his midnight shenanigans. After he's done making himself beautiful for the family he hasn't seen since last year's reunion, he comes out and tells my wife that he couldn't find his shaving cream so he used one of her creams.      My wife's eyes go wide. All of her creams are expensive.      "Uh, which one did you use, Dad?" she asks him.      "I don't know," he tells her. "It was the one in the little bottle."      I know exactly the one he's talking bout.   ...

The next morning, my wife steps out to get us breakfast.      The hotel we're staying at has a delicious "free" hot breakfast. Eggs, bacon, pancakes, French toast... you know, the works. I say "free," because they're not fooling anybody. You and I both know their just adding the cost of it to the price of the room. Still, the breakfast is delicious.      Despite this, my Dad tells her, "Nothing for me. I'm not hungry."      Not hungry? After all that fussing around he did in the bathroom last night? I thought for sure he'd have worked up an appetite.      "Should I bring him something anyway?" she asks me, not wanting her father-in-law to start his morning without the most important meal of the day. She's good that way.      I tell her not to.      "You know how he is," I tell her. "If Dad says he's not hungry, he's not hungry....

We stay at a pretty nice place. For my Dad, it's nothing but the best. As long as I'm paying.      Kiddingly, before we left, I told him, "I got us a pretty good deal at the Motel 6, Dad."      "What?"      "The Motel 6."      "What about the Motel 6?"      "That's where we're staying. At the Motel 6. I got us a pretty good deal."      "We're not staying at the Motel 6."      "Why not? It's a perfectly good motel."      "We're not staying at the Motel 6."      "It's clean. It's cheap. And the guy from those Motel 6 commercials will personally leave the light on for us."      I laugh at my own bad joke.      "Well," my Dad says, his eyes starting to bulge out from the anxiety of having to stay at a sub-standard motel. I'm so evil sometimes, it makes me laugh. ...

My wife packs all of my father's stuff the night before we leave. She's good that way. She'll pack the stuff he needs, the stuff he wants, and the stuff he wants but doesn't need. She does an excellent job, too. It comes from her years as a Girl Scout.      The next morning, just before we're supposed to leave for the airport, she has one of her "feelings" and rechecks his luggage. His luggage is right where she left it on the floor, so there's no reason to be suspicious of anything, but... well... it's my Dad.      She plops the largest of the suitcases on the bed, opens it, and finds this and that missing. More of this than that, but that's neither here nor there.      Gone are his sunglasses, his reading glasses, his shaving equipment, his belts, etc.      Etc. etc. etc.      On and on and on.     ...