Don't Judge Until You've Put Your Butt in Another Man's Underwear

In honor of Father's Day, I would like to introduce you to my Daddy, Petey.  Many of you know him, but for those of you who don't, you are in for a treat.  I've always been a Daddy's girl. I fondly remember my parents getting into a argument and Mama loading up my brother to go to my Grandmother's house.  It's a fond memory because at that age, I didn't understand that my parents were feuding, I just knew it meant making a run to the Hub Grocery for sardines, rag bologna, hoop cheese, and crackers.  Daddy and I would sit on the couch eating and watching "Beretta" until my Mama cooled down and came home.  I remember Daddy coming home half lit, Mama yelling, and Daddy grinning and dancing to make Mama laugh.  I remember going hunting and fishing and shoplifting gum at Downs Grocery when I was 5 (and having to confess to James, the owner, which affected me so much to this day, I have never taken ANYTHING again).  I remember so much about my childhood with my Daddy, and all of it was great.  My parents divorced when I was a teenager, but, unlike most kids of divorce, I don't remember the 'bad' as bad, just different from 'the usual'.

When Mama and Daddy were married, Mama was successful with suppressing  a lot of Daddy's 'quirks', but without her to keep him in check, his 'quirks' became 'eccentricities.' (trying to come up with words that mean crazy, embarrassing tendencies but doesn't sound as bad).  The first time I knew I was in for an experience, Daddy got a bit tipsy and decided to call his cousin, but he didn't know her number.  He got on the phone with the operator and said, "I need the number for MaryAnn in Houston."  When the operator told him she needed a last name, Daddy replied, "She used to be a Hopkins, but I don't know her name now.  Just give me the numbers for all MaryAnns in Houston."  From then on, I unplugged the phone when Daddy got an urge to call somebody.  In just a couple of years, both Daddy and I remarried and without me there to make him behave, he went into overdrive, but in a WHOLE different way.  He started trying to save money.  Now, he had aways been a cheapskate, but his second wife allowed him to spiral down into the depths of cheapness.  He would make a pot of coffee on Monday and reheat it every morning for a week.  He started buying his clothes at yard sales.  He started ordering water instead of tea at a restaurant and filling up his own cup in the bathroom of convenience stores to keep from buying a drink.  But, the cherry on top came when he started…for the people with a weak stomach, just skip this part……dumpster diving.  He would go to the store on the day they threw out groceries that expired or wilted and dig them out to take home.  He even got dead plants out to landscape his yard.  It was so bad, Grant refused to eat when we went to Daddy's house because he was afraid it came out of the dumpster.  If Daddy had been poor, I would've understood, but he was, if anything, comfortably middle class, to say the least.  To him, it was fun and a challenge to see just how much he could save.

As the commercials say, "But, wait, there's more!"  His 'eccentricities' have evolved over the years.  He does the extreme couponing now.  He even has a contest going with a friend each year to see who saves the most each year.  Daddy buys stuff he doesn't even want just to beat his buddy at the end of the year.  When cigarettes went over $3, he started rolling his own.  Not rolling papers and a little tobacco, but an actual machine and a bag of tobacco that looks like mulch. For holidays, we actually give him a real pack of cigs that he saves to take to the cafe so they will think he's "high dollar."  My aunt wraps up her husband's hand me downs and Daddy LOVES them.  If I buy him new clothes or shoes, I have to remove the tags and scuff the soles or he will return them, and he's still depressed that I spent money on new clothes when I could've gotten it at a yard sale for a quarter.  Need more evidence that he's eccentric?  He gets extra salt and ketchup at restaurants and FILLS UP BOTTLES AT HOME with them.  That's his Sunday afternoon activity for fun.  I could tell you these money saving tips by Petey all day long because, trust me, even I can't believe the lengths he will go to save a nickel (literally lengths, he has a specific amount of toilet paper to use and not a square more, no sense wasting 4 inches of paper).

Though Daddy has gotten penny pinching down to a science, when it comes to electronics, let's just say, his ingenuity doesn't carry over into other fields.  He has a DVD player that he has never played a DVD in because he doesn't know how.  He has a cell phone, but doesn't know how to text or check his messages.  He sent me his first text for my birthday.  It said, "Hapqy Brthcdx." (He doesn't know how to change from the first letter to the next letter yet, but at least he's trying.)  When I texted him back, he had to call me to tell him what it said because he can only read what pops up on the screen and when it goes away, he can't find it again.  When I wrote the blog about getting caught at Grant's house by the police, somebody asked why I just addressed my Mama and not my Daddy, and I laughed out loud.  My daddy still thinks a 'mouse pad'  is what a girl mouse needs to wear a week out of the month if she hasn't been through menopause.  I could put porn, bomb blue prints, or a recipe for ricin on his computer and he would be one of those people on TV that says, "I didn't know I was living with a psycho until the FBI showed up at my door," and everybody watching the story yells at the tv because there's no way he didn't know.  Yep, that's my Daddy.

Through the good and the bad, he's the greatest.  I know that he would be there for me no matter what, where, or when.  He might bring his own glass of water or can of viennas so he won't have to spend a dollar while he's there, and, more than likely, he will have on clothes that some other guy had on a week ago that cost Daddy a quarter, but he will be there, nonetheless.