Nuggets Of Wisdom From My Dad

I have your hands. I have your hair. I have your short legs. The thing I love most is that I have your sense of humor and personality. In honor of Father's Day, I would like to share a couple of my favorite memories and teaching lessons:

• Most states on the East Coast are blasted with freezing temperatures and everything else associated with cold weather during the winter months. Rational people build fires in their fireplaces and wear their coats when they go outside. Why? Because it's cold. My dad liked to ignore this when driving my brother and me to school in the morning.
  "Okay is everybody ready to go to school?"
  "No..."my brother and I said in unison.
  "Oh hmm... well why don't you take your coats off so you can be comfortable on the way," he said, as we agreed this was probably a good idea. It wasn't more than a minute later that my dad rolled down all the windows in the car, opened the moonroof and quickly turned on the air conditioner on high.
  "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!"
  "This is fun isn't it?!"
  "ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND? DAD! It's 20 degrees outside!"
  "Oh man, it's gonna be so warm at school... just wait." As we both hastily put our coats back on, I thought to myself how dumb, yet effective, his methods of teaching were.
  
• One thing he inadvertently taught me was the art of "making stuff up when people ask you questions that you don't know the answer to and don't want to look like an idiot." This skill was never more apparent than when I was in my prime curiosity years of 4-to 7-years-old.
  "Hey Dad, what's that thing in the sky? It looks like a plane, but it's drawing white lines behind it."
  Without even thinking, he says "Oh honey, that's a skyscraper. They scrape the sky." Totally made sense, until I went to school that is and learned what a real skyscraper was. In other lying news, he also told me that if you press the buttons on top of a milkshake lid, the milkshake will go up the straw faster.
  
• Finally, last but not least, make people believe you are the most important person in the room and you should be treated as such. If he was met with a dispute in a public location, or felt that his needs were not being accommodated, his go-to catchphrase was "Do they know who I am?" He continued, "Seriously? They don't know who I am? This is ridiculous." No, sir, you are ridiculous.

Oh, I've noticed that I have your skin and its susceptibility to wrinkles, so thanks for that. I hope to one day also have your self-confidence, however absurd it may be.