Fun Expert
Thursday, August 25th, 2011My father gives me a set of beakers. All of different sizes, including a tiny one that is so adorable you want to explode. These are all from his lab and MAY OR MAY NOT have been used to store caustic chemicals. But I do not care because these beakers are totally BOSS. They are awesome! I also got these little test tubes with screw tops, also very adorable. I have no idea what to put in them. My brother says to store urine in them but then he stops himself and says, actually you know what? It’s too small for urine–as if this is something I’m seriously considering. Yes, Mike, let me piss in a test tube and you know with this screw top, I can easily store it for…later? So I thank my father. I will enjoy these beakers. They’re even graduated! Bad ass, right?
So then my mother says, why are you giving our daughter beakers? What is that about? My father says well it’s for decoration. She can put pencils in them, store things, she can even drink out of them! My mother says, why on EARTH would Annie want to drink out of a beaker? She has CUPS for that. She doesn’t NEED beakers. Why would she want to drink out of that? My father says, because it is FUN! FUN! But, you don’t know FUN, do you? You don’t know it!
And then we all laugh because throughout all this, my father is wearing SUSPENDERS. But not just any suspenders. They are like 2.5 inch wide straps made out of the same material you would use for, like, a duffel bag strap. AND they are holding up plaid madras bermuda shorts, which do not actually require suspenders and also do not “go” with suspenders AND in addition, these are suspenders a carpenter would wear in order to hold up a heavy toolbelt, which, if you are paying attention, my father is not wearing because we are at home eating dinner together. The man does not even wear a toolbelt at work. And apparently not a regular belt. So a man wearing carpentry suspenders is telling my mother she does not know fun.
I tell my father, hey, why don’t I get you suspenders that are not, uh, THOSE suspenders. Something classy? And he goes WHY? Those probably cost, like $25? What a waste of money. And I go, how much did THOSE cost and he says $15 and I say for an extra ten United States dollars I would totally buy you nicer suspenders that don’t look like you are wearing an actual backpack except without the pack. And my brother and I have a discussion about suspenders, in which we bring up the rainbow ones that Robin WIlliams wore in Mork & Mindy (nanu nanu, what a retarded show, seriously that show is seriously retarded). So my father says what is the point, I do not wear these in public. But he is soooo close to wearing them in public I can feel it. I mean he’s wearing them around the house, what is to stop him from being like, shit I need to run out and get some milk, and then boom suddenly he is wearing suspenders in Ralph’s. This is what I’m saying.
But even backtrack from that, why is my father even WEARING suspenders? Why wear suspenders instead of a belt? It’s not like he has no belts. My father is a man with belts. So, I ask him this. What is up with the suspenders? He says because belts make him itchy. He has been wearing belts for over 60 years at this point and NOW he decides that belts make him itchy? How can belts even itch? They’re not made of wool. It makes NO sense at all. I don’t understand, but my father is wearing suspenders a steel worker would be wearing to hold up, I don’t know, some kind of badass tool that uses fire to cut metal. But my father is there at the kitchen table eating vegan spring rolls with his hands.




