Sh*t My Dad Says

I began reading this book while vacationing on Marco Island.  I would flip back and forth from the carnal rollicking of Bared To You to the funny and flippant Shit My Dad Says.   (All that "extra" heat in the Florida sun necessitated a lighter escape to my senses.)

"After being dumped by his longtime girlfriend, 

twenty-eight-year-old Justin Halpern found himself living at home 

with his seventy-three-year-old dad. 

Sam Halpern, who is "like Socrates, but angrier, and with worse hair," 

has never minced words, and when Justin moved back home, 

he began to record all the ridiculous things his dad said to him..."

I had an uncle like Sam Halpern.  Uncle Milbert.  He's passed on now.  Seemingly always harboring a grumpy disposition, we'd grown used to his swearing and outbursts, his candid and colorful cracks at life while paying no mind to present company, for there was never an inhibited bone in his body.  We  never knew quite what to say in response to his conniptions, so we usually tried to stay calm and unaffected, pretending that we didn't hear him, or if we did hear him, we were taking no position on the subject.  It was an awkward time of silence serving to underscore the honesty of his perspective.  Our family loves retelling stories about Uncle Milbert.

This book was a goldmine of flashbacks for me.  What a funny read, my basking in the sun punctuated with laugh after laugh.  Gotta love this guy's honesty.  I'm blogging only a few of my favorites from the book.

    One day I was on a walk with him and my dog, Angus, who was sniffing around in a bush outside my neighbor’s house.  My dad turned to me and said, “Look at the dog’s asshole.”

    “What?  Why?”

    “You can tell by the dilation of his asshole that he’s going to shit soon.  See.  There it goes.” 

    It was at that moment as my dog emptied his bowels in my neighbor’s yard and my dad stood there proudly watching his prediction come true, that I realized how wise, even prophetic, he really is.

"Do people your age know how to comb their hair? It looks like two squirrels crawled on their heads and started fucking."

~~~

On Toilet Training

“You are four years old.  You have to shit in the toilet.  This is not one of those negotiations where we’ll go back and forth and find a middle ground.  This ends with you shitting in a toilet.”

~~~

“You say you’re sick, huh? Well, it looks like you’ve come down with a case of bullshit.” 

~~~

On the Baseball

Steroids Scandall

“People are surprised Mark McGwire did steroids?  Look at 

him!  He looks like they should

 have him in a stall on display at the fair with some poor son of a bitch cleaning up his shit!”

I give it a 10.