The First Tribute

I've been having a hard time motivating myself to blog lately, because I am really boring. But today, I had an epiphany. Why don't I write about people who are NOT me? And so, I came up with the idea to do a series of tributes to people who have proved themselves blogworthy throughout my life. I didn't really know how many I was gonna do, but in the spirit of Hunger Games mania I should probably do twelve. Actually, if I were really adopting the spirit of Hunger Games mania, I should do twenty-four tribute blogs, about twelve males and twelve females, but that would be uber nerdy. And I am not a nerd. Hodor. (Sorry, that just slips out sometimes.)
Without further pointless rambling, I present to you tribute number one: my dad.

I started thinking about my dad, actually, because this summer seems to be infested with weddings. Now, I've never been one of those girls who ever thought about her hypothetical future wedding, but the one thing I do know about my hypothetical future wedding is what song would play when I dance with my dad. (If you know me well, you can probably guess this... go ahead and give it a shot.) And thinking about that made me remember how all my life my mom has told me if I ever get married, I'll have to find someplace with a really short aisle, because I won't be able to walk very far with my dad without threatening to kill or at least maim him.
I don't know why I threaten violence against my dad so much. It's just, you know, a bad habit, like some people bite their fingernails, some people clear their throats a lot, some people feel the need to glare at their fathers while punching their fists against their palms in a "you're next" fashion. I mean, I do it entirely out of love, of course.
The day that I was to meet my boyfriend's parents for the first time, I was kinda nervous, and I mentioned it to my dad in an email. My dad emailed me back with the sound but perhaps somewhat bitter advice that I should relax and act like I'm with my own family, except to not take that too far and disembowel my boyfriend's dad, as his mom might find that somewhat offputting. Now, that part of his advice was completely unnecessary. I mean, I have NEVER threatened to disembowel my father. That is completely uncivilized and messy and a violation of one's digestive privacy. I had threatened to stab him the last time I saw him (I really don't remember what prompted that, but I'm sure it was warranted, like he was whistling a song I don't like), but stabbing is the sport of gentlemen and is not even necessarily fatal.
Still, the fact that my dad thought I would go as far as to disembowel him (or, someone I was imagining was him) shows me that I need to start saying more nice, gentle things, to counterbalance all my playful rage. So, here goes.
Dad, you are awesome. You have taught me the value of bike rides, barn quilts, crossword puzzles, and not letting a movie interfere with my sleep. I am so grateful to have you in my life. Grateful enough that I am willing to forgive all the things that made me feel stabby before.
Yes, I forgive you for that time I had friends over and you brought out your fart sound effect machine. I forgive you for SPOILER ALERT telling me that Piggy died when I was on chapter three of Lord of the Flies and also for telling me half an hour into Saving Private Ryan that Tom Hanks dies at the end END SPOILERS and not giving a spoiler warning before you spoke as I was courteous enough to do for my readers. I forgive you for all those weekends when I was a kid that you dragged me to model train stores. I mean, really, those stores are so boring. And we'd stay in there FOREVER. Why couldn't we ever do what I wanted to do instead? You might claim that some weekends, we actually did do things I wanted to do, but, gee, I'm sorry, I don't remember those weekends because I think the part of my brain that stores happy memories was destroyed when my brain cells literally started cannibalizing each other when driven mad by the boredom of the model train stores. But, whatever, I guess I still forgive you. Heck, I'll even forgive you for that decade's worth of my life when all you listened to was Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Seriously, like, all the time. It drove me crazy. And still, you persisted in listening to it, and whistling Josephy tunes, so blithely oblivious to the fact that your daughter stood before you, rigid with a red-hot rage, no, not just a red-hot rage, a red and yellow and green and brown and scarlet and black and ochre and peach and OH, DEAR GOD, AFTER ALL THESE YEARS I STILL REMEMBER THE COLORS. I FORGET EVERYTHING I LEARNED IN HIGH SCHOOL AND COLLEGE, BUT THIS MADDENING CHANT OF THE RAINBOW IS STILL TAKING UP REAL ESTATE IN MY BRAIN. I CAN NEVER BE FREE OF IT, EVER! THANKS TO YOU REFUSING TO EVER LET ME CHOOSE THE MUSIC ON CAR TRIPS, EVER, I HAVE NIGHTMARES ABOUT DONNY OSMOND TO THIS VERY DAY. DOES THAT MAKE YOU HAPPY? DOES IT??? WHY I OUGHTA
...ahem. See, that was close, but I made it through an entire tribute to my dad without threatening to stab him a single time. And that just shows how much I love you, daddy <3
Who wants to be my next tribute?