#Dad lore

[inbabylontheywept]

she was dead silent on the drive home, but that was okay. sometimes, after band practice, she was just out of words. it was a short drive to her house. the only part where it actually felt weird was after i pulled up her parent’s driveway. 

after that, the silence stretched so far it smeared and left a weird residue. she kept looking at the car door like she wanted to leave, so i looked at the door too, then she looked at me, and i looked at her, and my first thought was that she was going to tell me that the door was stuck. i was used to that car always doing some damn thing. it was the car me and all my siblings had learned to drive in, and it was really beat to hell. there were dents all over the body, which we’d unsuccessfully tried fixing up with spackle. it had looked nice for maybe a week, but then the sun wrecked it - the spackle cracked up like the mud on the bottom of a dry riverbed and turned a sort of off yellow-white that made the car looked like it had been molded out of chicken shit. it also had a bullet hole it through the cabin that whistled like a toothless old man whenever the car went above 40, so loud it could drown out the radio, and a cabin that smelled so strongly of bugspray that even the arizona summer we drove everywhere we could with the windows down.

(if you have kids one day, you will maybe, possibly, begin to understand how much i loved that car.)

anyway, i was thinking about what else could possibly be wrong with the chickenshitmobile, and she just kept looking at me, and then i wondered if there was something on my face, and she just kept looking at me, and then the penny dropped and i realized she was trying to work up the nerve to break up with me. 

now, i’d seen her work up the nerve to do things like this before – it could take quite a while. and knowing it was about to happen made the waiting immediately unbearable. 

so i said hey. 

and she looked at me, very startled, and said hey back real small. like she’d been caught. and in a way, i suppose she had. 

and i said it’s okay. you can just say it. i’ll be okay.

i’m always okay. 

and she said: i’m really sorry. 

i loved her, you know? it was highschool, but teenagers are capable of love. the way people love changes over time just as much as the way they stand, or the way they talk, but things don’t stop existing just because they're different. opposite really – a thing only stops changing when it's fully gone.

and i said, nothing to be sorry for, and i meant it. she looked a little relived, and i was happy to give her that peace. then she left. i watched her make it through the front door, because that was just habit at that point, and then i sat there a while afterwards, checking how i felt. and the answer was not good, but good enough to make it home. good enough to limp on. 

so i put my car in reverse, took my last look goodbye, and immediately backed into her neighbor’s car. 

crunch. 

air bags didn't go off, which was good. i left a decent dent in the bumper of the other car. genuinely couldn’t tell if i did anything to my car – anything wrong with it just kind of blended together into the general ecosystem of hand mottled, sun cracked, chickenshit spackle. 

i checked my glove box, and my car insurance info was, of course, out of date. my phone was dead too. as a teenager, my phone was less my lifeline to my friends, and more my tether to my parents, so i wasn’t particularly conscious of keeping it charged. both my fault.

i sat there a few minutes, trying to think of the best way to handle things, and there was only one answer i could think of, and i hated that answer, so i spent a few more minutes trying and failing to think of a better one, and then a few more coming to peace with what had to be done. 

then i went back to knock on my now ex’s front door. 

her dad opened, which i was very relieved over, even if he seemed less than thrilled. he looked me over, and in a firm, but slightly apologetic way said: she does not want to see you right now. 

(i think he assumed i was going to try and talk her out of the break up?)

and i said not here for her. i just backed into your neighbor’s car, and i need to call my dad, but my phone’s dead. could i borrow yours?

and he looked at me, then back at his neighbors car, which sure enough was dented, then he looked at the chickenshitmobile, and if there was something wrong with it, it just kind of blended into the general Wrongness of the car, then back to me, and i could see him imagining the last ten minutes from my pov: getting broken up with, backing into a car, having to walk up to your exes door and borrow a phone, calling my dad to tell him that i just reversed into someone.  

and his expression shifted from stern and apologetic to truly sad, which felt more kind that i deserved. things only got here because i kept fucking up - forgot to look behind me, forgot to replace the insurance forms, forgot to charge my phone. it was my mess, but his sympathy meant the world to me. i probably would’ve cried if he said sorry, or patted me on the back or called me sport, but instead he said

stay out here – i’ll bring you a phone.

and then he left.  

i found a nice spot on the lawn in the shade under a sycamore, then settled into his grass.i was trying not to freak out, and was doing an okay job. he came out a minute or so later, not just with a phone, but a juicebox and a jar of green olives, which really threw a wrench in the whole try not to cry thing. soon as i saw those, a few tears squoze out. i was still hoping i could pass them off as Manly Tears but then he told me that he’d gotten the olives a few weeks before and had been meaning to hand them off to me, and that this was his last chance for that. then i made a sound like a horse drowning in a bog, and he patted my back pretty rough, four solid thumps, like he wasn't sure if i was crying or choking on an olive, and was trying to cover both bases at once.

then he went back inside, and i made a few more bog horse noises while finishing off the rest of the entire jar of green olives, and then i called my dad.

he was about ten minutes away that day, and luckily was home. he drove over, and we went to the neighbor’s house, and from there things actually went quite nice. the neighbor was a retired man who actually said he could fix the dent himself, no need for insurance. he said he appreciated that i didn't just drive off, and i said i was really sorry about his car, and he said he was really sorry about my car, and then he gestured to the chickenshitmobile and i laughed because it really was a disaster on wheels.

then we left.

i thought we were going to head straight home, but instead we went to a gas station, and we both got several slim jims that we folded into thick enough coils that we could put them on a hotdog bun because the growing up mormon equivalent of having a sad brewski with your dad is just choosing to make bad decisions sober. then he took me to the canals and we watched the sun turn all orange and pink, and he looked over at me and said:

brains are good at remembering bad days. so you gotta make sure that a bad day has a good part in in, so you can remember that too. remember that when you have a kid. try to do a good job on days like that - they're going to be a big part of how they remember you.

and then he gave me a big hug and said he was never going to eat another slim jim again.

---

the year after that i went to college, which kicked my butt in new and exciting ways. and on a lot of those bad days, after a test that went sour, or a faux paus that was particularly embarrassing, or some other hardship of my new adult life, i’d stop by the gas station and pick up leathery, half jerkied hotdog before heading to the canals to watch the sun set. i’d take a bite and imagine my dad next to me, grimacing through the slim-jim wad, asking what good thing i was going use that time to remember. 

and in my head, i’d say you, dad. 

i’m going to remember you.

[soupinaboot]

Do you think Batman ever just casually drops the most insane lore to people at random like it's nothing? Cause I do.

[outcasts-redeemer]

Jaune's Dad Lore is gonna be wild

Jauneson: "Hey dad. Mom told me to tell you to clean out the garag-

Jaune, shrouded in darkness: "For twenty years I waited in a land devoid of logic and reason, reliving every moment of my failed life again and again, waiting for my friends to arrive..."

Jauneson: "W-what?"

Jaune, normal looking: "You got it sport. Tell your mother I'll get it done."

[lucifers-golden-bitch-apparently]

dad lore is wild like what the fuck do you mean you used to put firecrackers in your neighbors cigarettes

[observingfangirl]

Why I can't take TMA seriously

I don't think I've written about this yet, so here it goes

So, I love TMA so much, I really do,

but I truly cannot think of anything else to do with it anymore because I just keep thinking -

If I had a nickle for everyone time I've heard of someone being nonconsensually lotioned, I'd have two nickels!

Because - listen - one of my dad's big phobias is lotion/lotion-like products because when he was little his older brothers used to tie him to a chair and slather him in their mom's rose scented lotion

(no, I have no idea why, that's just how the fam is, plus they were like 9 years older than him.... Actually this still makes sense for one of them)

And now, here comes Jon "Plz kidnap me" Sims, WHO GETS SLATHERED WITH LOTION and now not only can I never get my dad to listen to TMA because he literally shivers at the word lotion,

but now I burst out laughing because seriously, of all the trauma a member of my family could have shared with a TMA character, it's the most bonkers one.

[ask-shane]

Have you ever gotten yourself into a bar fight? If so, for what reason?

i wouldn’t say it was a fight. just a run-in with a guy who had too much to drink and some anger issues… my resting bitch face must've pissed him off, because he started yelling across the bar accusing me of staring and wanting to fight.

it didn’t last long before security took care of him. what a wild night.

[hockeyuploads]

dad lore drop

so my dads friend’s dad (i know) was a cop for wings games in the early 90’s, js security so nobody did sum stupid, and he was leaving a game and fucking SERGEI FEDOROV w his FRESH ASS CORVETTE rear ended it like a month after he received it 😭⁉️ he said in a thick ass accent “i’m so sorry officer omg here’s a 10,000 dollar check!” friends dad js kept it and didn’t cash it in, saw it as a signature and has it around somewhere lol

[wingamy24]

hey guys im sorry for being inactive once again but uh

im currently watching paul mcartney live. so

[wilsons-three-legged-siamese]

I just got new dad lore guys..

My dads old boss' step son was Issac Hampstead Write who played Bran Stark in game of thrones-

HE USED TO COMS IN AND MAKE TEA FOR THEM OMUSVSVSSKABAK

NEW DAD LORE

[let-me-sleep-or-die]

*finds out viola and thorn are going to have Kids*

“oh! Nice!”

*realizes thorn is going to have peak dad lore*

“oh, NICE!”

[sandinmybed]

so I brought up the Putin/trump/sunak fuck marry kill conundrum from yesterday's video to my 50 year old heterosexual dad when he drove me to work today and he said "obviously kill trump, shag Putin, because he's into all the homoerotic shirtless horseback riding, so that leaves marry sunak"

[monsieur-kazzle-dazzle]

watching the bad batch in clone wars season 7 is so surreal because it's them before they became the dad batch. like we get to watch them actively collect dad lore in real time.

[xxxjasontoddxxx]

OKAY SO LIKE.

My dad is obviously not the best at being emotionally vulnerable.

HOWEVER.

Yesterday he walked into the living room, sat down next to me, and said "I'm really proud of you. You're doing so well for yourself and I'm proud that I helped shape the person you're growing into."

LIKE?

ASJFKVEUSNDNXIOWNXNKZ

[cult-of-the-eye]

More dad lore:

Asked for a butane torch for his secret santa

Why do we need a butane torch???

To make creme brulee or smores????

We don't usually (or ever) make those items?????

What?????

I asked him these questions, to which he replied:

"I wanted to ask for something I would never actually buy for myself but it is still fancy so i can say that i own it"

[themadlostgirl]

learning dad lore is so fucking wild. I'm at the point where I'm sure I've heard it all and then he drops out of nowhere that a fairly popular country band from the 80s used to come to house to have ragers and he had to tell them to stop coming by with their tour bus because it was garnering too much attention!

LIKE??? SIR??????!! Wtf is this? Wtf is happening? I thought you jumping off a second floor balcony to stop a bar fight was wild. What the fuck is this shit!