Inside the kitchen was my mom’s sister, Aunt Jeanne, who was staying with us, and, unaware of the 1:00 A.M. burglar rule, had decided to fix herself a late-night snack. Upon hearing his threat, she opened the door, spotted my father naked on the floor, with a shotgun pointed at her and his exposed rear reflecting the light from the kitchen. She ran past him into her room and slammed the door. My dad assumed she was just afraid of the burglar and remained agitated.
Oblivious to what was going on outside her bedroom, my mom called 911. “Sam! The police are on the way! Put your gun down and your clothes on!” she hollered from the other side of the house.
“Fuck that, I ain’t doing either! This is my house, goddamn it! I gotta defend MY house!” he yelled back.
The police finally showed up, determined that there had been no foul play, and encouraged my father to put his clothes on and disarm himself.
The next morning my brothers, my parents, and I sat silently at the breakfast table. When my aunt came out of her room for the first time since she had retreated from my naked, gun-wielding father, she was not talkative, either. Just in case I hadn’t realized what had happened, my brother Dan leaned over and whispered to me, “She saw Dad’s wiener, then he tried to kill her.”
My dad turned to us and said in a serious tone, “I guess I should fill you in on what happened last night. No one broke into the house. BUT, remember, a man’s house is his house.”
He took one last bite of Grape-Nuts and chirped, “Okay, gotta go to work.”
On Chivalry
“Give your mother the front seat. . . . I don’t give a shit if she said you could have it, that’s what she’s supposed to do, and you’re supposed to say, ‘No, I insist.’ You think I’m gonna drive around with my wife in the backseat and a nine-year-old in the front? You’re a crazy son of a bitch.”
On Candy
“Jesus Christ, one fucking Snickers bar, and you’re running around like your asshole is on fire. Okay, outside you go. Don’t come back in until you’re ready to sleep or shit.”
On Going Away to Camp
“Relax, it’ll be fine. You’ll build fires, set up tents, sleep outside, it’ll be fun. . . . Oh, it’s basketball camp? Huh. Well, cross out that shit I said you were gonna do and just replace it with ‘play basketball,’ I guess.”
On Summer Vacation
“Watching TV all day is not an option. If this were
On Off-Limits Zones in Hide-and-Go-Seek
“What the fuck are you doing in my closet? Don’t shush me, it’s my fucking closet.”
On Sportsmanship
“You pitched a great game, you really did. I’m proud of you. Unfortunately, your team is shitty. . . . No, you can’t go getting mad at people because they’re shitty. Life will get mad at them, don’t worry.”
On Getting in Trouble at School
“Why would you throw a ball in someone’s face? . . . Huh. That’s a pretty good reason. Well, I can’t do much about your teacher being pissed, but me and you are good.”
On Making a Christmas List
“You ranked the twenty-five presents you want, in order of how much you want them? Are you insane? I said tell me what you want for Christmas, not make a fucking college football poll.”
On Waterslides
“You go on ahead. I’d rather not be shot out of a tube into a pool filled with a bunch of nine-year-olds’ urine.”
On Packing My Own Lunch
“You have to pack a sandwich. It can’t just be cookies and bullshit. . . . No, I said if you packed it yourself, you could pack it how you want it, not pack it like a moron.”
“Fucking hell! All I asked, goddamn it, was that you sit still for a couple hours while I lectured on thyroid cancer!”
When I turned ten, my mom decided she wanted to go to law school. My dad was supportive of her career goals, even though they meant that he’d have to assume more of the responsibility of watching me.
“Me and you are gonna be spending more time together, but a lot of that time, I’m going to be working, and I’m going to need you to not talk and entertain yourself,” he explained to me after my mother showed us her first semester’s class schedule.
