My father is by nature a fun-loving person.
He was the one who short-sheeted my bed as a kid – so when I got in I couldn’t get my feet down to the bottom – the one who filled his left had with axle grease, hiding it as he put out his other hand offering a handshake. When I responded in kind, he grabbed me, pulled me close and rubbed the axle grease in my hair.
He would on occasion start a food fight at the table, flicking peas at us with his fork, much to my mothers exasperation.
I remember the time when we were traveling Europe on vacation and he spent a whole day with me in a pinball parlor – spending an exorbitant amount of money – for a day that by most mothers standards (including mine), would be considered a complete and utter waste of family time and finances.
Still, these are the moments kids remember, so perhaps they weren’t so wasteful after all.
These days he’s much more serious, he owns stores in the Sydney area and is always pouring over the books and dealing with some crisis or another and when he comes to visit it’s inevitably a whirlwind trip, because he has to get back to put out another theoretical fire back at base camp.
Until recently.
He and my mother recently left on a trip to Canada for 5 weeks. Australians get a minimum of 4 weeks paid vacation leave every year, so its pretty standard that if you accrue some leave, people will go overseas and stay for 4, 5 or even 6 weeks.
They’ve traveled the east coast of Canada visiting Montreal, Quebec, Toronto, over the border into Buffalo? (am I right here?), and by all accounts are having a ball. I have deduced that they are also very relaxed as I see signs of the man who once was.
I worked this out, primarily by this little stream of text messages my dad sent me. His messages are in white, mine in green (note the time he sent the first message).
This is what old people do when they relax, they go insane.
As you can see, I have a 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em' mentality.
And here is where it becomes painfully obvious whose child I am.
After about a week I called my sister to see if she had heard anything from them – she hadn’t. Our conversation went something like this:
I can see where you get your sense of humor — but I fear where you will end up with it! Endearing post.
Yes, there is a line between tasteful and not, thankfully my family member have the ability to laugh at themselves so I know I am safe with posts like this – other families – not so much! Thanks for the comment!
Oh, darn! And you were thisclose to all that jewelry! The beavers let you down. Loved, loved, loved this piece. So funny! Your dad reminds me of my dad! I used to say, “What am I gonna do with you, Dad?” and he’d always reply, “Just love me.” I did. Oh, I DID!
I know, darn those peace-loving Beavers! Ill have to wait another few decades now! Love your saying you had with your dad. Great stuff.
What a freaking fun family!
I’m the oldest of 3 girls and we do kinda the same thing. Our big hang-up is the inheritance.
ANYTIME the old people (we call’em that with love) go anywhere or do anything, I always tell them to live it up and have a grand time…but to do it on the other two’s portion of the inheritance and not mine.
They went to Hawaii for vacation this summer and I had to pick them up at a God-awful time in the morning from the airport. Told’em to be sure and add a nice tip to my side of the inheritance since I was the only one that drove ALLLL the way to the airport to get them.
You see where I’m going?
And they both love to come back with stuff like, “don’t worry…we’ll let you girls decide the best way to divvy up that $4.98 we’re leaving ya’ll.”
ha! love it! Well, you know where to travel when you get that big cut of yours, Australia will be waiting!
We have a running joke about the inheritance in our family too, I know some families who are VERY serious about things like that and would never joke.
In my experience, if you cant laugh about it, you are probably way to interested in your family members for their money and thus shouldn’t get any of it anyway.
Preach it, sister…totally right.
On the flip side, I seriously tell mine they better die broke. They didn’t work all those years to sit around on their stash during their golden years.
And yeah. They’re working on that.
Thrilled yours is living it up…what fun! And can’t wait to hear their stories when they get back. I’m betting your dad is finding some trouble you can tell us about later!
in meeting this dannedimg schedule is not the time it takes to write the blog but actually what to write about. Assuming you set yourself this goal and you write every working day (even business bloggers
Glad they’re having fun in Canada. I understand the best funny weed is found in BC. Are they heading west after their eastern Canada tour? Oh, and Canada has lots of bears. Just don’t tell your sister so you can get a head start on cleaning out the house.
ha! I’m going to accuse them of smoking ‘the funny weed’ when they get back. Ill give them a knowing look and say “I know why you chose CA for the vacation, its got the best pot!” They are staying on the east coast. They’ve done Vancouver, across to Banff and Jasper a few times I think.
Now I think about it, last time I was there in my 20′s I took photos of bear cubs by the side of the road, how did I not remember that? I love the rocky mtns of CA, I lived in CO, but Is till think CA has the most beautiful scenery in the world.
Mark, don’t be pushing the funny weed on her folks. That’s her inheritance you’re dipping into.
=)
Vancouver is amazing. I was a flight attendant for several years…several years ago. One of the best layovers. Though I did panic when I woke up after dozing off to pure daylight. Figured I slept through the alarm.
Nope. It was 1:30 am.
Simply beautiful area though…loved it.
HA! Now that’s funny Carrie! That’s right, no drugs for the old people because its an inheritance issue!
Still, if I had to chose I’d prefer they spend it on funny weed, Ive heard the cost of Cocaine is skyrocketing these days…
Vancouver IS so pretty isn’t it? I can’t believe you were a flight attendant, how much fun was that traveling all over the place? Lucky you.
Well… You haven’t seen Idaho yet.
That’s true, so perhaps I need to reserve my judgement!
ha! Love that post! I wish every parent had (or has) a wild, rebellious streak to them!!
Jules
http://andsuddenlyisee.wordpress.com
http://wordshakermag.wordpress.com
yes but then they get old and crazy and it all goes to hell in a handbasket! I just dropped over to your blog and will add it to my RSS and keep up with you, thanks for posting!
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I hope they have a fun trip! That’s awesome they get to take that many weeks off. Your dad sounds like he was a lot of fun while you were growing up.
I think they are having the time of their lives – who wouldnt love to be another country for over a month? Fun growing up = whole world of trouble now!
Hilarious post! Very funny, and yet so full of love for your dad. He sounds like a lovable ratbag
Thanks! We have had some fun times, there there was the discipline that was not so fun….
“Have you heard from ‘the olds’”? That’s adorable. What do you call children: The smalls? I loved the story (especially since I’m one of the “olds”), and I especially loved it because they were living life and causing you and your sister just a tad bit of apprehension by not communicating when you thought they should. (My husband and I do that to our daughters [27 and 29] when we travel just to mess with their minds.)
Enjoyed your post, as always! ET
I dont know if that’s just an ‘our family’ thing or cultural, but they have been called ‘the olds’ as long as I can remember by my sister and I. Thankfully they seem OK with it, I had a call from Canada, they read this post and were crying they were laughing so hard. Thank God for a sense of humor! And yes, they mess with us all the time, its OUR turn to worry about curfew!
Should the children not be the “youngs”
yes, and this makes me forever young given i am the child!
The ‘olds’ was fairly common in Australia when I was a lad. No, I’m not that old, but I couldn’t resist the opportunity to sound like an old bloke reminiscing about the olds days.
My dad was the trickster/prankster/joke pulling parent in my family as well. He often went so far as to make up answers to homework questions that he thought would grab a laugh, much to mother’s chagrin who declared on more than one occasion that we would be idiots if she weren’t around. Coincidentally, he was an engineer. No dummy – he! Your parents sound cool!
I love the homework answers, and as a kid Im sure I would have loved it even more! I’m with your mother though, without me, my boys would be useless morons as well lol
Thanks so much for stopping by!
I’m like that with our boys. The youngest was writing sentences last night using words the teacher had set. One was ‘crowd’.
Hmm, I suggested, how about a crowd of woozles. He chuckled. I started capering about and making idiotic noises. They’d be noisome woozles, I proposed. He told me I was an idiot. Ah, I said, they’re noisome idiot woozles then and started bouncing off the walls. He was now in stitches and telling me to shut up.
He took his homework book to school this morning. In pride of place is the sentence:
I was trapped in a crowd of noisome idiot woozles that insisted on bouncing off the walls.
Not bad for P4.
We’ve not yet had a response from his teacher to any of our more interesting sentences. She just ticks them. We’ll just have to try harder.
I wonder if she just assumes you are one of those ‘insane aussies’ and figures its a cultural thing she doesn’t understand, and so gives him the tick? Either way, he’s looking good!