Father’s Day – A How-To Guide

By Christopher De Voss @chrisdevoss

Tomorrow is Father’s Day.  Like other important holidays such as Arbor Day or National G-String Day, LAP wants to provide our expert advice to you, gentle reader, on how to properly celebrate Father’s Day with your father.  Here’s how:

DO ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

Paying attention yet?

You’re thinking right now, “But how can we not push another ugly tie on him and drag him to Outback and make him eat that onion thing?”  After all, he obviously can’t pick out a tie for himself, and he enjoys whipping out the credit card when you ‘take him out’ to dinner.

So, really, we insist.  Do nothing.  Not a damn thing. 

This.
This is ugly.
Seriously ugly.

Why?  This is your next question, and LAP is going to scratch your itch.  Ready?

Leave dad alone on Father’s Day, because chances are he’s spent every waking minute for the past (insert your age) years worrying about something associated with YOU.  It could be your curiously-groomed boyfriend, your grades, or your decision to ‘go find yourself’ instead of college… it doesn’t matter.  Give him mental space.

Number one… I’m holding a finger up to show you.

Don’t give him a card that teases him about his Dad Bod or his highwaisted pants.  Keep in mind the man got that way by waking up every day at five and grinding through a day as a wage slave cubicle monkey so that you could have your Barbies, Transformers, that new car just like your friends, not to mention the safety and security of a roof over your head every night.

What’s wrong with my pants… SON??

Don’t bug him, because that lost, vacant look comes from the prison sex with an abusive boss in that cube.  It comes from the fleeting memory of that chance he had at that dream job opportunity… right as your mom told him they were pregnant with YOU.  And then again with each of your siblings.

If you could bend over… that’d be greeeaaat…

Leave him alone while he washes and waxes the Minivan of Final Capitulation.  He’s spraying himself in the face to wash away the bitter tears of regret.  Let him visualize the 13.2L, V16 hemi truck with enough torque to relocate Rhode Island in blessed peace, because minivans are cheaper, safer and have rear seats.

Give him a day to touch every power tool or hand tool he has in his garage today.  Don’t bother him, because he’ll be thinking about the cast-steel bed table saw, drill press and other Norm-Abram-quality tools he didn’t buy so that you could have cheerleading camp, or a pony, or the unending weekends spent at one soccer tournament after another.

The international symbol of ‘I give up.’
But, it’s paid for.

Also, don’t be cute and buy one of those cards with a sexy woman on the front and some tissue-thin innuendo punchline inside.  He’ll probably smile, hug you, and then think about how your mom was even hotter than the model on the card until you ruined her in the process of being born.

We only have seven pills left? Damn.

Let the poor man rest and sleep in for a change.  Trust us, he hasn’t caught up from your infancy yet with the diaper changes, colic and midnight boob snack wailing.  Or staying up until your spoiled ass is asleep before he assembles the Christmas presents to maintain the fantasy of Santa Claus for one more precious year.  He’s also up late now because the boy you brought home has an earring and calls him, ‘bro.’

You call him ‘boyfriend.’
We call him ‘justifiable homicide.’

No, readers, just cut the man some slack and let him wander aimlessly around.  Dad will be befuddled by the lack of noise, questions, demands, and bent feelings sent his way, but he’ll be happy.

Besides, come Monday morning, it can be all about you again.


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