RaisingDad

As usual, my father is sound asleep in the family room.      I don't know how he can sleep because, as always, he has the TV blasting away. He must have been watching a baseball game, because that's what's on. I can see it from the kitchen counter where I'm sitting. It's the 5th inning and, boy, is he missing one good game.      Unfortunately, my Dad's snoring gets the best of me, so I leave and return just as the game is done. The players are all jumping up and down. They're congratulating each other because they won at the last second.      And that's when my father wakes up.      " Wow-weeeeeee ," he says, looks at the TV, and then, "Hmmm... what the? "      My father sits up a little straighter in his --my-- favorite chair, so he can get a better look at the screen.      "What's going on?" he asks no on...

Recently, my wife wanted me to go shopping with her.      At first, I didn't want to. I like to hike in the afternoon, and her shopping schedule would disrupt my walking schedule.      Finally, when she told me we'd be going to the mall, I agreed. I figured that the way my wife shops, I would still get my walking done, and this way both of us would be a winner.      In my case, a broke winner.      Unfortunately, my elderly father who lives with us decided he wanted to come along, so, instead of walking, I knew I'd end up being a babysitter for a 96-year-old man. He used to walk every morning, but, recently, his idea of going on a walk has become sitting in front of the TV and watching The Price Is Right .      After a store or two, my father and I sat and waited for my wife to run out of money. As we watched the other Saturday shoppers walk past, a group of very sexily dressed ...

Our dogs are pretty good about going outside to do their business . If they have an accident it's usually our fault because we either had the back door closed or we didn't pay attention to them when they tried to warn us.      Today, my father's dog must not have been feeling well, because he had an accident. Twice!  It's probably from all the junk food my father insists on feeding him, but my father will never admit to it. Either that, or my Dad has trained him to annoy me.      When the second accident happened, my father was sitting in his usual spot in the great room, minding his own business, and snacking on a chicken leg. He wanted to know what was going on when he saw my wife and I cleaning up the mess.      "What happened?" he asked.      "Well," I tell him, " your dog just had an accident in...

I told you that last story to set myself up for this story.      I was talking with my buddy Maloney, when I mentioned that my father had recently been having trouble "dropping the kids off at the pool," if you get my drift. We've tried increasing the fiber in his diet, but the problem with that is it will just sit there on his plate until it sprouts legs and walks off on its own. We've also tried an over-the-counter laxative, but that hasn't worked, either.      I could swear that my father's digestive system is perfectly fine, and he's just pretending to be constipated to get attention, but who would believe me? My wife certainly doesn't.      "I believe you," my friend Maloney told me.      "You do?" I asked him.      This came to me as somewhat of a shock. What Maloney does best is turn every conversation about someone else into a conversation about hims...