He's Just Unique

I love my father. Not just because he coached my soccer team for 10 years or because I am contractually required to say that to remain in the will, but because he is so unique. Unique in an eccentric way, not in a serial killer way.

Because he is my father, many of the strange things he does never occurred to me as unusual. In fact, it isn't until I see him through someone else's eyes that I really grasp what a singular fellow he is. Case in point. My girlfriend invited us over for supper last week. Michele and I have know each other since grade 7, needless to say, she knows where all the bodies are buried.

Sometime during the evening someone said something about socks. This brought up a story about my dad's obsession with socks. Not to say he has a sock fetish, it is really more that he is concerned about bare feet. To Rudy, the equation is like this: bare feet + a chill = DEATH.

Of course, most of my teenage friend often visited sans socks. Because being teenagers, you dressed cool, not warm. No sooner, did they walk through the door then they would be engulfed in a tirade regarding the gravity of wearing socks in our climate. These powerful fuzzy entities were the last and best defense against any number of maladies. Without them, and here he would shake his head sadly, they might as well except that they were goners. This happened so often my sisters and I started hiding socks in the laundry room. That way we could steathly cover bare feet that may have, unwittingly, entered the house bringing certain death with them.

But really that is only one of his quirks. Last year I was very sick with a terrible cold. Believe me it was not related to my sock wearing state. Since Mom and Dad were coming up to visit and I was confined to the house, I asked Dad to stop at Starbucks and pick me up a Mocha. Now, I was not there when this transpired, but from what he told me, and Mom confessed to her shrink, his visit to Starbucks went like this: He ordered a mocha, to which the girl behind the counter inquired to size; tall, grande, or venti. The use of terminology that he didn't understand, instantly set him on edge. This is a man who has cultivated selective hearing for many years. I am not convinced he doesn't use the phone the same way my 15-month old niece does. Picking it up and just yelling at from arms length.

But the girl was staring at him, so he needed to answer, and of course that damn woman (Shirley) had wandered off somewhere. Thinking tall, must be a large, he ordered that. When the she told him the price, he sputtered and grabbed at his chest. Recovering a little he asked her how she slept at night. Then he announced that Starbucks was never going to make it when you could get coffee at Tim Horton's for a $1.50. She rolled her eyes. When the drink was delivered to him and he saw the size my mother (who had returned) had to hiss at him to keep his voice down as he unleashing a litany of curses. I on the other had wasn't so lucky. I was soon to find out that I did not respect my money, and that my head was up my ass. Who knew?

What's not to love?