Posted By startswithanx on December 22, 2009

My father, Cliff, is an interesting man, to say the least. This morning he insisted I sweep my windshield with a broom before backing out of the driveway. When I returned from starting and finishing my holiday shopping, I found him in the living room with newspapers spread out around him so the magic marker he was using to change the light brown stripes on his winter boots to dark brown didn’t stain Clair’s wooden floors. Before he left to pick up my mom from work he gave me a complete biography of every CNBC anchor. And that’s just one day.

The man could very well provide the entire content of this blog if I lived here in West Valley City with him and the rest of the familia. But, I don’t so I can only share little gems such as this:

Serena, Clair and I just finished the first half of the masa for our homemade tamales (Clair does all the work, we just assemble them). We’re in the living room, unwinding from the domesticity, when the madre starts a mental list — only out loud the way all people over 55 make mental lists — of which neighbors she wants to take over some Christmas tamales.

That’s when Cliff’s ears perk up and he insists on editing Clair’s mental list.

“We should only give them to the neighbors who brought us something. That would be The Old White Couple next door and The Lesbians. NOT the Africans.”

As you’ll notice, no one in their cul-de-sac has last names, only races and sexual affiliations. (Oh and just so he doesn’t seem out of touch or anything, he didn’t forget to attach “American” to the Africans. They really did just move here from Africa.) I know this because I expected Clair or Serena to cut in and tell him that they are Mary and Tonya, not The Lesbians, dammit! But both of them just resumed the conversation, telling Cliff that the holiday is about giving, not receiving and thou shall respect thy neighbor, blah, blah, blah.

Cliff rebuts and begins to list the goodies that have come to the door to support his case. A cheese ball was on there and I forget what else, but he’s shocked to learn someone dropped off chocolate cookies. “Why didn’t I see those?!” he wants to know. I half expect him to pull out a clipboard and officially record the chocolate cookies, but he one ups me and darkens the lights for his PowerPoint presentation. OK, OK. He only says that yes, those neighbors, we’ll call them “The Young Asian and His Bisexual Girlfriend,”definitely deserve our tamales.

Never a dull moment with this guy. Gotta love him.

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That same day, Chet came over with my nephews “A,” who’s 16 and “D” who is 10. The entire hour they’re here, D is begging A to play his XBox when they go home. A is relishing in every “no” he can give his little brother. At one point D disappears for a while and returns with a letter, which he slips to A. It’s a picture of a little kid asking a bigger kid if he can play his XBox. The bigger kid clearly isn’t A because he replies “sure!”

Finally, A decides to explain his refusal to share. “You were a little brat earlier today, making fun of my acne!” D replies, “What? I never made fun of your acne!”

I start to leave the room to tend to Penny and think to myself “How does D even know what acne is.”

That’s when D finishes defending himself. “I only made a joke about your zits.”

“A” shoots him a look so dirty not even a Swiffer could clean it. Again, D disappears. This time until it’s time for the three of them to leave. They’ve been gone a good hour when I go to use the bathroom and discover where D spent all that time. The bar of soap on the sink no longer says “Dove.” Instead, the words “I Hate A” have been inscribed onto it with what appears to be a toothpick.

First the drawing, now the inscription. So artistic, this one.

Categories: family, this happened, utah