RaisingDad

  "This ice cream's not very good," I heard my Dad tell my wife. Let me stop right here and formally apologize to my mother for my having been a kid. I can't begin to tell you the times she served me a perfectly good meal, sometimes even perfectly delicious, and it didn't meet the standards of a dork who would eat dirt.  Don't judge me for eating dirt.  As a kid, I had a friend who used to eat his own boogers. The gaggle of kids I used to hang around with were repulsed, but also fascinated. "What do they taste like?" we'd ask him. "Salty," he'd say. We'd offer him our own boogers, freshly picked, but he thought that was gross. I always found that funny. Eating his own boogers was fine, but eating the boogers of others was not. I would have thought he would have enjoyed the variety.  Hmmm, now that I think about it... I wonder if he was picky about his  mother's  food. That reminds me of a joke. I would tell it to you, but it...

My wife's a saint. When I first asked her if my dad could move in with us, she said, "Sure, why not?" Her own father had passed away a few years earlier, and she had always gotten along with mine. Besides, he was a grown man. Self-sufficient. He used to be in the Army, for gosh sakes. During World War II. How much trouble could he be? The house we live in has a guest house in the front that is separated from our house by a nice patio. The guest house is where my father now lives, and the patio is where I enjoy drinking coffee and reading the newspaper in the morning. It's also where I enjoy drinking coffee and talking with my wife in the evening. Did I mention that I enjoy drinking coffee? That's because I do. When I sit there, the kitchen is directly behind me. On the evening he moved in, I was enjoying coffee by myself, and I could hear my wife talking with my father. "Dad," she said, trying to be nice and make him feel at home, "would you like so...

  Chapter Three    I can't wait.   I have to call Kate. She'll be ecstatic. And elated. And enraptured. And other words that begin with e and make me glad I own a Thesaurus.   "Who's this?" she demands when she answers the phone.   To the point, as ever.   "Kate!" I squeal. "It's Ana!"   "Who?"   "Ana. Ana Steele."   "Doesn't ring a bell."   "Ana, your roommate."   "Ana?"   "Yes!"   Finally.   "My roommate?"   "Yes!"   "Ana's not home," she cheeches to my chong.   As predicted, when I am finally able to prove my identity by answering a gauntlet of password questions, she is euphoric.   "Wait a minute," she says, cutting me off. "Anthony Weiner just texted me those photographs you were telling me about. I'm looking at them now... ewww! "   "What's wrong?"   "Let'...

Chapter Two    My heart is pounding.   I never should have had the Heart Attack Grill's two-for-one Lard Special with the free Diet Coke. I don't care what the Coca-Cola Company says, I bet there's some empty calories in there somewhere. They don't all dissipate in an effervescent sparkle of fizz once you pop the top, like my mother used to tell me.   When the elevator finally spits me out on the first floor with a grunt, I'm more confused than a Hollywood starlet sitting in front of a plate of food.   What the crap had just happened?   On my drive back home, I think about a lot of things. I think about whether there will ever be peace in the Middle East. I think about whether we will ever judge each other by the content of our character, and not the color of our highlights. I think about what I'm going to eat when I get home.   Speaking about getting home...    When I get home Katherine-- Kate --must still be feeling sick, becaus...