RaisingDad

"Honey," my wife said, giving me her sweetest smile. "I need you to fix the shower curtain in dad's bathroom." " Again?" I questioned. "Again," she confirmed. "But I just fixed it," I griped. "Well, fix it again," she countered. "It can't be broken," I insisted. "And yet it is," she insisted back. "Again?" I mumbled to myself, because I knew the only one in this room interested in hearing my complaints was me. I must have fixed that darn thing--what?--eight, nine, ten times? It seems I retired from a job I enjoyed just to spend that retirement fixing my father's shower curtain. It's not that it's hard to fix, because it's not, but that's not the problem. "The problem," I explained to my wife, "is that pop uses the curtain for support when he gets out of the shower. We have the same kind of rod in our shower, and how many times has it fallen? ZERO times....

  What is marriage?       Well, my friends, marriage is accepting into your life a partner to help you solve the problems you didn't have when you were single. It's a constant battle between two people, one who can't sleep if it's too cold and another who can't sleep if it's too hot.       When you first fall in love, it's the best time of your life. I don't know why that has to change after you get  married, but it does. I'll admit, marriage is a fine institution, but have you ever seen the inside of an institution?       I retired earlier this year, and if there's one thing I've learned from my retirement it's that husbands and wives weren't meant to spend great quantities of time together. Like an Italian salad dressing, you can shake up the bottle but the illusion of the oil and vinegar mixing in perfect harmony is temporary. I'm good for an hour in the morning without making her...

    My father and I have just returned home from an appointment with his doctor. He doesn't drive any more. Since he now lives with me, I find myself chauffeuring him around to conduct his personal business. I always thought the older you got, the less you did. Apparently, that's not the case. At least with my father. I'm always taking him here or there, doing this or that. He's closer to the end of his century than the beginning and has been diagnosed pre-Alzheimer's. You might think that Alzheimer's is something that happens to someone else, but don't fool yourself, we're all pre-Alzheimer's. We just need to live long enough for it to catch up with us. It's 11am. Still early. He's studying the medicine his doctor prescribed, and which we've just picked up from the pharmacy. "Can you believe the price of this medication?" he asks. Of course I can.  I just paid for it. "Now remember," I tell him, "the doctor said ...

    I was feeling down last week, so I was happy when my old friend Bill Maher invited me to watch a taping of an episode of his HBO show  Real Time .       "Bring your kids," he insisted.       Bill Maher  loves  kids.       Unfortunately, my children had school, so my wife stayed behind with them while I flew First Class to California courtesy of HBO.       Maher and I met in the late 80s during the filming of  Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death .       Haven't heard of it?       That's no surprise.       That's why I had my name taken off the credits.       When I got to his studio I was surprised to just walk right in through the stage door, nobody stopping me.        "What's up with that?" I asked my old buddy.       "Are you Donald Trump?" he a...

  Living with my father has never been easy. When it came to communicating, he went by the 90's motto: Don't Ask/Don't Tell. He didn't ask me anything, so I didn't tell him anything. He was of the belief that children (especially his) should be seen, not heard. And, preferably, not even seen. It was enough for him to know we were around. It was a different time. Let's leave it at that. And then my parents grew old, my mother passed away, and my father was diagnosed pre-Alzheimer's. When my family and I asked him to move in with us, I thought maybe things would be different. They weren't. His first words when I tried to engage him in conversation were practically, "Don't bother." Not too long ago, I walked into the den and sat down. Not in my favorite chair, because my father claimed it the day he moved into my house, but in the sofa next to it. He was watching baseball on the MLB channel we got him. Sometimes I'll watch baseball, too. U...

  Well, it's getting to be that time of year.       Fall.       Called that because of how leaves fall from the trees.      That reminds me of a naughty joke.       An old man is raking leaves with his grandson when they see an earthworm crawling out of its hole.       "I bet you five dollars you can't put that worm back into its hole," the grandfather says.       The boy thinks about it, then run into the house and comes back with a can of hair spray. He sprays the worm until it's as stiff as a nail and, sure enough, sticks the worm back into its hole.       "Well, I'll be darned," the old man says and pays the boy five dollars.       He takes the can of hair spray.       "I'll be back," he says, and goes into the house.       Thirty minutes late he comes back and hands the little boy anot...

Travis Kelce is an old football buddy of mine. Before her engagement to him, I was listening to a news report about Taylor Swift's boyfriend  du jour , Mr. Insert Name Here. In it, the reporter mentioned some of her former boyfriends. John Mayer. Harry Styles. Osama bin Laden. That last relationship, however, was tragically cut short by SEAL Team Six.  Why Taylor Swift's love life qualifies as news is beyond me, but I did smile in recognition when they mentioned she once dated Conor, the oldest of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Mary Kennedy's four children. You see, in prep school I was his tutor. Sadly, I was never able to teach him how to properly spell the name "Connor." They were seen everywhere kissing, cuddling, and kissing some more. She was so in love with him that she spent $4.9 million to buy the 1928 beachfront mansion in front of the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts just so she could be closer to her heart's one true love and the rest of ...

In case you're wondering where my buddy Slim got his nickname, I gave it to him back when we first started working together. I took it (sort of) from the character Leo  Gorcey played in  The Bowery Boys  movie series from the 40s and 50s.       Before   ​his  father passed away (“Smell The Fudge” 8-18-2025), my older and much less attractive brother sent me a music video.        When Did I Get Old?  by Derrick Dove.       That sent me down a rabbit hole of songs about getting older that did an excellent job of depressing me. Songs like  It Was A Very Good Year  by Frank Sinatra.  Like A Rock  by Bob Seger.  Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini  by Brian Hyland.       I was already feeling down, so it was the wrong time for my buddy to call with a sad story. He asked me how I was doing ​ but it was obvious he  wanted to talk. Wh...