I had a date on Friday night. With my dad. I love my dad for lots of reasons. He's a lot like me and we can talk about pretty much everything. He makes me laugh harder than most people can. I get most of my good and bad qualities from him. Plus, he's just plain fun.
Our date consisted of going to eat sushi and then to Academy. Because everyone likes to vomit raw fish next to new kayaks.
Before we went to eat dinner, I was at my parents' house and my dad showed me his new "tennis shoes" and sought my approval. I quickly cast disdain and scoffing at the direction of my father for two reasons: 1. for still using the term "tennis shoes." He does not play tennis and they are not shoes to be worn during the sport of tennis. They are
"running shoes." Dad is not a runner, however these are aptly advertised as running shoes in the store. We will now refer to them as running shoes and no longer as tennis shoes. Case closed. 2. they were ugly. My dad has an affinity for picking the whitest, most clinical looking shoes that Academy has to offer. Perhaps even more sad is the fact that Nike made such an atrocious looking pair of footwear. (See, I'm casting disdain and scoffing.)
Back to the completely irrelevant part of the story. Dad shows me the shoes and goes into a long diatribe providing me with FAR too much information detailing the trip in which he purchased said "tennis shoes." He held the Academy bag, shoes,
and reciept in his hands and asked me, "If I take all this back to a different Academy, will they let me exchange the shoes?" I was like, "Hi. I'm Earth and you've been here for 58 years. Have we met?" YES YOU CAN EXCHANGE THE DADGUM SHOES! That is, in fact, the
precise way to go about making an exchange in a store. I don't understand why men lack rational thinking when it comes to shopping.
I should have known the Academy trip was going to be a fiasco from my father's experience with shoe shopping. Once, he needed a new pair of "tennis shoes" in the 80s and so he blindly walked into a place called 'Sneakers' only to find out that it was an establishment promoting the nakedness of women and not the purchasing of new "tennis shoes." Oops.
Academy Sports and Outdoors, however, promotes all things sporty and outdoorsy (clearly) and it is therefore one of my father's favorite stores. He said that he could live there if they served food. Shortly, he'll be moving into Bass Pro Shops because they conveniently have a restaraunt! We go to Academy and mosey into the shoe section. My dad's phone rings, he answers in the LOUDEST VOICE POSSIBLE and tells the other person on the line (my mom), "I'M AT ACADEMY WITH DAUGHTER. SHE'S HELPING ME GET NEW SHOES. WE JUST HAD SUSHI. NO, I DIDN'T CALL HER! SHE CALLED ME! I AM LEAVING HER ALONE! I PROMISE I'M NOT SMOTHERING HER..." Smother....smother...smother.
After I died a quick and embarassing death, I revive in the shoe section where I pick a pair out, he tried them on, and decides they are for him. The first pair. Now tell me, how hard was that with a woman's help? So simple. He looks at me with a gleam in his eye and says, "Do you think they have Levi's here?" And then I died of embarassment once again. No one calls them 'Levi's.' Or 'denims.' Most people say 'jeans.' But not my father. No sir. He wants to "go look for the Levi's!"
We get to the jean section and he says to the woman who is hanging some clothes on the rack, "Hey Academy girl..." and I don't remember what he said next because he just called the kind woman with a job "Academy girl." Who does that? Then he looked at the wall of "Levi's" and said, "We've reached the motherload." Dad went straight for the bright blue 80s wash in the size he needed, got two pair, and announced, "Okay, let's go!" I pushed aside my desire to call him deranged and proceeded to seize the ugly jeans in exchange for cooler colors. He grudgingly went into the dressing room, after handing me his cell phone saying, "Here, hold Charlie." The trip to Academy was a success because I managed to convince him that the vintage colors were more attractive than 1986-color denim. My dad is now the epitome of cool in Levi's jeans. Not hard to accomplish when one is wearing Levi's brand jeans. No disrespect.
As we are driving home, my dad busts out with, "Daughter. Would you ever consider living with a boy before getting married?" I knitted my eyebrows and think, 'What the...?" but decide to humor him. I really wanted to be a smart-ace and tell him that I'd
consider it but I'd never do it. But since I feel Father was asking more out of fear for his 27-year-old daughter, I decided not to send him into cardiac arrest and I answered with a firm "no." Furthermore, my personal opinion is that it freaks me out beyond belief to actually open myself up enough live with a male. I think I would more than
consider living with a boy and might
do it as long as the boy retained his previous residence (even if the previous residence was in name only). Because let's be honest...it happens. However, I might want said boy to retain his own residence after marriage so he can go live there when I wig out because that's just how I get about committment. But Father didn't need all these details and might start to shake when I begin to pour my soul out to him about all my relationship issues.
I bypassed said issues and decided I could be a mature adult and said, "Why do you ask, Dad?" I still don't know what made him ask because he began rambling about "sexual relationships" and "I'm more conservative" and "this day and age." I had an odd mixture of feelings about where this converstaion could lead and then it was all a blur and I have since blocked most of it from my permanent memory. I decided we could end the topic and said, "By the way, you're about twelve years too late with all of this." He hung his head and admitted that he was never good at knowing what to say about it all and I just laughed at my father's efforts.
And that's why I love him and why he'll always be cool in my eyes. Because he says things like, "Hey Academy girl..." and has the sexual relationship conversation well past the appropriate age. But I'll think twice about saying yes the next time he asks me on a date.
