Hey kids. I know, it’s a little weird having your dad write you a letter when we live in the same house. But I’m trying to be low-key about something. I know that you’ve met with your mom at least once already to discuss what you’re doing to do for me for Father’s Day. (Don’t act so shocked. I have my ways of getting information, too.) I have tried discussing this with your mom, but she’s, well…stubborn. She has certain ideas about what constitutes a good Father’s Day gift. Actually, her ideas usually consist of something that evokes a memory or stimulates a sense, all in the name of romanticism. While that may work out great for her (and women in general), it doesn’t really send me (and men in general), you know? So this letter is your 4-1-1 on what makes a great Father’s Day gift. You can suggest these to her later, and eventually she’ll think they were all her ideas, and everybody’ll be happy.
Let me start off by telling you what Father’s Day gift ideas are BAD ideas.
A tie. The last time I wore a suit was to your great-uncle Bradford’s funeral, back when leisure suits were popular. So it’s not like ties are a regular part of my wardrobe repertoire. And because she lets you pick the tie out, I end up getting something that you think is cool, like what I got last year – a Spongebob Squarepants tie with “Ocean’s Best Dad!" emblazoned across the front in hot pink. Definitely the kind of thing I want to wear to work and share with my fellow employees. Skip the tie this year.
A family dinner in a nice restaurant. The problem here is how you define “nice". To your mother, “nice" means tea rooms and country kitsch, with boring New Age or classical music playing quietly in the background, and food items on the menu that nature never intended to be eaten in tandem. My definition of “nice" involves a restaurant where they serve meat and meat and more meat, with potatoes and gravy and maybe a real vegetable, like corn. The music in the background is blaring from a jukebox and you have to yell at each other to talk, except that nobody’s talking because everybody’s stuffing their faces full of all that meat and meat and more meat. Your mom won’t go for that when she’s trying to create the ambience she feels is necessary to burn a memory into my brain. No “nice" restaurants this year.
Spending quality family time at an educational or cultural site. I don’t know who decided that piling the family into the car and heading to a locale where we can all be bored out of our skulls for the better part of a day is a good time. I’d like to find that person and have him drawn and quartered. Listening to whining kids complaining that they want to go home NOOOOOOOOW is not how I want to spend the day. Oh, and speaking of whining kids, remember last year when Mom blindfolded me and drove us all to the museum to spend four hours looking at dead people’s lives? Wasn’t that SUCH fun? Weren’t you all SO EXCITED to be there for the ENTIRE AFTERNOON? Don’t you want to do it AGAIN this year? HA! I didn’t think so!! Save your sanity and mine and forget the “educational family time" this year.
Now, let me tell you what I’d like to see under my Father’s Day tree this year. Yeah, I’m combining holiday icons here, but you know what I mean!
Toys. I don’t mean board games or GI Joe or Yu-Gi-Oh card game packs. I mean toys I can appreciate. For me, that would be that backhanded crescent wrench I need to finish fixing your bike. Or the new racquetball racket I’ve been talking about for the last three months. Or the 60G iPOD, or the fourth season of “Star Trek: The Next Generation" on DVD, or a year’s subscription to Napster. Unlike your mom, I LIKE gifts with a practical application. The plaster-of-Paris handprint you made in first grade is really sweet, but ten minutes after I’ve opened it I’m wondering how well it would function as a Frisbee. (No, Kelly, that’s not how yours broke three years ago. I told you, the dog got to it.) And you can’t say you don’t know what I want. Have you not seen the catalogs and mail-order forms I’ve left lying around the house with items circled in eye-searing red? You really haven’t? Well, just remember those two magic words: Gift Certificate. I won’t be the least bit offended. I’ll smile and say thank you and head out for a quick 30 minutes of shopping.
Dinner. See MY definition for “nice" above, and take me somewhere like that. If you’re that concerned about Mom being upset, call ahead of time and make sure they have some wussy healthy feel-good-about-yourself items on the menu that she’ll appreciate. Like salads. Or tofu.
Time. I’ll compromise with you on this one. Take me someplace where we can all have fun – an amusement park, a baseball game, the beach – and we’ll get to spend some time together and have a blast doing so. Then afterwards bring me home and leave me alone for awhile, so I can take a nap or play with my new Father’s Day toys or whatever. That gives us all the best of both worlds, don’t you think?
I don’t usually ask for much. I just go and do my job and bring home the paycheck so you can eat and have clothing to wear and a place to sleep at night. So when you’re talking to mom about what to do to celebrate my day this year, remember the guy who taught you how to ride your bike and tie your shoes, who played horsey with you until you got sick and threw up and then cleaned up after you and never told Mom so we wouldn’t get in trouble. Or I might accidentally let it slip that you broke curfew three nights running last week and you begged me not to tell her because you knew she’d ground your tail off if she found out. Thanks. I knew you’d understand. Love, Dad.
