My Faja

The cool little girl on the right with the backwards hat and a wicked lean is me back in the day. However, more importantly, the man in the middle is my dad. He is who I am going to be talking about today. He is a cool guy, but he is unique to say the least.

Just like all parents, they change with age. For my dad, that means not going to the dentist for 6 years getting a cavity and, his words here, "almost dying from biting into a Big Mac because the pain was so intense." When I told him to go to the dentist, he replied with, "I'm just going to wait until it falls out." He also has a strange syndrome where the top of his cranium continues to grow while the rest of his head stays the same size, resulting in an uncanny resemblance to Mega Mind. When he puts on his spectacles the arms of his reading glasses struggle not to snap from the width of his head.

But enough about his physical attributes, let's talk about some of his quirks. One thing about him is he loves free food. He always says, "something about free just tastes better." As a kid, when my dad asked us if we wanted to go out for lunch, he would take us to Sam's club for the free samples. We would always make two rounds and when the workers would say, "didn't I just see you?", he would simply say, "You got the wrong guy." Once done eating, we would leave the store, having bought no store products. Although recently it seems he has taken his love for free food to the next level...

Additionally, one of his favorite things to do is start beef with absolute strangers for pure pleasure. He mostly does this for fun during his free time, where he will go onto Facebook and find a politically charged post just to say something really controversial and targeted. He will publicly argue back and forth with strangers for hours. One of his favorite pastimes is also starting conflict in real life, too.

He also loves tracking people down that he dislikes, snapping a picture of them and sending them to me while adding snarky comments. The lady below, he must've sent me a picture of her three times by now.

Furthermore, my dad is the type of guy that every year on my birthday, he will text me a happy birthday message and proceed to send me one of two pictures. It happens every year without fail, he either sends me a picture of me as a fat baby in a bunny suit, or me with my Ozzy Osborne glasses and the fake-nail-through-finger gimmick that I won at an arcade. I am convinced that these are the only two pictures of me that he has.

My dad is the kind of guy who once broke up with one of his girlfriends because he said her daughter ate too much cheesecake and she was running his wallet dry with her extensive cheesecake orders. He also sends me random videos like this one to let me know he's "still got it."

Finally, my dad likes to live on the edge. A few years ago, he asked if I wanted to help him by driving him around for some extra money. I agreed. However, when I got into his beat-up Nissan Versa for the first time and the radio button fell off and stuck to my finger when I tried to change the station, I knew I was in for an interesting time.

Part of his job as an insurance inspector is to go to people's houses and take pictures of the outside to submit to the insurance companies. But my dad has a bad habit of not taking no for an answer when people deny the inspections. So, when we arrived at this extremely rural property with a long winding dirt driveway, lined by tall shrubs and grasses, it was a bit ominous. I always waited in the car while he did his work, but I saw the exchange between my dad and the owner of the house. It seemed to get a bit heated as they were both raising their voice. The owner eventually went inside, but my dad proceeded to take pictures of his house. My dad helped himself to the backyard by opening up the fence gate. I didn't think much of it as this was nothing out of the ordinary. A few minutes later, I was playing on my phone when I heard my dad yelling my name. I look up to see my dad running full speed towards the car screaming, "start the car, start the car!" I look behind him to see the owner of the house chasing after my dad with his shotgun, shouting absurdities at him. My dad basically jumps into the car like this:

And he yells, "GO, GO, DRIVE!" However, the dirt path driveway was so thin and narrow there was nowhere for me to turn around. I was going to have to back out of this incredibly twisty route. But, for anyone who read my last blog post you know I am in no way the best driver; especially when it comes to backing up a car. However, with my life in danger, I knew what I had to do, and it felt like somehow the spirit of Ricky Bobby came over me. I threw that car in reverse and effortlessly snaked around those difficult turns and bends like a professional racecar driver. But during those tumultuous two minutes me and my dad were just like this:

I look back on that memory fondly. There are so many other stories to tell about my dad, but we would be here all day. So, I will leave you with this video, which demonstrates the dynamics of the relationship between him and his children. Enjoy.

DISCLAIMER: If you have a weak stomach, you may not want to watch this video.