Father's Day Revisited, Part Two

Father’s Day My Ass!

Father’s Day is a day dedicated to celebrating fatherhood. It is the one special day out of the year when children & moms show their everlasting love, devotion, and appreciation for the dads in their lives. Fathers everywhere can not only enjoy one day of solace, they can hold their heads up high knowing that their hard work and their willingness to take on the responsibility of being a dad will not go unnoticed. PLUS, they’ll all get GREAT GIFTS!

At least that’s what supposed to happen.

Father’s Day is and always has been a total crock of shit! Dads are often neglected and their importance in the family is usually only acknowledged when the judge is working on alimony payments or visitation schedules. Dads get no respite from the burden of fatherhood on Father’s Day. They get no special treatment, no fancy presents, and no respect. At least they don’t come close to reaching the levels of admiration, devotion and unbridled coddling as mothers do every Mother’s Day.

I’m not saying that being a mom is any harder or easier than being a dad. I’m sure that we can all pay our parents a little more respect every now and then. However, quite frankly, EVERY day is “Mother’s Day”. Moms are treated like GODS and dads are treated like “the help”. Perhaps this is a residual effect of the whole Virgin Mary thing. Regardless, dads will never rate as highly as moms on the Love-O-Meter. Moms are the apples of their children’s eyes. Dads are the ones whose arrivals home strike fear into the kids’ eyes when they hear mom bellow, “You just WAIT ‘til YOUR FATHER GETS HOME!“

This is all due to that pesky nine months of self-imposed agony and discomfort that women go through during the process of becoming mothers. Men only have to show up, plant the seed and then pay for everything. They do have to walk on a lot of egg shells for nine months being careful not to notice that their emotionally flip-flopping wives are getting fat. Being a dad is no picnic.

But does this miracle of childbirth really justify dads getting the shaft when it comes to gifts, dinners, and overall niceties on Father’s Day? I highly doubt it! I don’t want to make this seem as though gifts and dinners are the most important things with these useless holidays, but in reality, that is so clearly the case.

When it comes time to shop & plan for Mother’s Day we are ALL expected to really bring on the goods. Don’t you dare screw up Mother’s Day or you’ll hear about it for the rest of your natural life.

Kids get a reprieve from having to really pour on the happiness and the gifts for a few years. The little hand-drawn card is sweet and satisfactory early on.

The dad, however had BETTER dig deep into the pocketbook and find the cash for a champagne brunch, some jewelry, a NICE card, flowers, a day at the spa, a surf & turf dinner AND a kick-ass gift if he expects to live a day in his own house with clean underwear and without tension. He MUST find a sitter for the kids so mom can have a quiet day without having to tend to anyone. He must also shell out as few more bucks so the kids who are too old to get away with a macaroni sculpture and a refrigerator drawing can buy a suitably special and wholly impractical present for mom. No Ronco Rotisserie Grill for her, No, sir!

What does dad get for Father’s Day? Old Spice & soap-on-a-rope!

What a total sham! I know men are inherently simpler creatures than women, but come on people, the guy paid for your braces! Soap-on-a-rope? Why not just write “DIDDLY SQUAT” on a Post-it Note and hand it to him, because that’s OBVIOUSLY all he means to you!

What are the traditional gifts for Father’s Day? A necktie? A Hammer? MAYBE a Rutger Hauer video? What the hell kind of crap is this? Bring on the home electronics, the auto accessories, the Makita-Freakin’-Pit Bull for Christ’s sake! Dads want stuff to play with, things to listen to, and expensive intoxicating items to consume.

What does MOM think is a great gift for dad? “Hmmm….OOH! Why don’t you take the kids fishing or spend the day with them at Disneyland?” Yeah, mom, that’s a great idea, a DAY OFF FOR YOU!

Dads DON’T want to be spending the day with anyone, especially their kids on Father’s Day. About the only way they truly want to be out and about with the kids is if these kids are spending their own money to take dad to a baseball game, Morton’s Steakhouse or to Score’s Gentleman’s Club. Otherwise, dads just want to have one day where they can watch every inning of every game, scratch any body part without scrutiny & everything is quiet until the silence is interrupted by their own farts. If a tray of hot grilled food & a DVD copy of their favorite porno were thrown onto the floor at some point DAD WOULD BE HAPPY! I know one dad who would be satisfied if all he received on Father’s Day was nothing more than to crap in peace. Mom gets some diamonds from DeBeers and dad can’t even crap? Something’s got to change!

Moms, here’s what most, if not ALL dads want for Father’s Day. Make a list. You’ll need to remember this.

DADS WANT SEX. Preferably not with you. Sex with you is what got the poor bastards in this mess to begin with! Hell, they probably didn’t really want to be dads in the first place, they just wanted to have some sex and shut you up about the whole family thing.

If they MUST get their kitty from the same old pet store then give them the GOOD SEX. Not that tired old white-bread married sex that you’ve been giving him once every two months since your wedding day. Dad wants that hot, sweaty, who’s-your-daddy, porn star MONKEY LOVE that he had before he got married. In other words, give him that wild, reckless abandon sex you had with all the guitar players and Harley riders before you decided to, “settle down with a nice guy and have a family”.

Every thing you’ve said “no” to in the past, everything he’s been afraid to ask for because of your wrath & judgment, all the things you need a bottle of Jack Daniels in your system to even consider - those things are ALL ON THE MENU on Father’s Day. In fact that’s what he wants on his birthday, Christmas & New Year’s Eve as well and DON‘T forget to tell him how MASSIVE his penis is!

Sometime after the sex dad wants you to take the kids, the phone and all pets except the dog FAR AWAY! He won’t care where you go so long as it is not near him. The only reason he’ll be needing your services is if he wants more SEX. It might be best if you just drop the kids off at a day care somewhere and invest in one of those walkie-talkie phones so he can reach you if he needs something scratched. Write down “day care” and “walkie-talkie phones” now. Before you leave you will put the toilet seat in the proper upright position.

Next, dad wants to watch his 120-inch high-definition flat-screen television with surround-sound stereo system and 100 disc DVD changer that you bought him, with your own money. Put those on the list, somewhere after the Corvette & the X Box. Hey, you expected him to spend at least a third of his salary on a freakin’ engagement ring!

He’ll be watching “The Natural”, “Bull Durham”, “Field of Dreams”, “The Great Escape”, “Porky’s I, II, & III”, all five “Rocky” movies, and ANYTHING where buildings explode, Bruce Willis says, “motherfucker”, Mel Brooks farts, boobs bounce, and anyone ranging from Olympia Dukakis to Julia Roberts or Jessica Tandy DIES! Then he will watch baseball.

All of these viewing pleasures will be enjoyed without having to answer your questions about the water bill, yelling at the kids to stop touching each other, or taking out the trash.

At some point you will be expected to come home and check the oil of your car. SEVERAL TIMES. Then…more SEX.

If you can’t manage to find a place to store the kids, they will be expected to provide dad with not only new fishing gear, but an entire fishing weekend in Canada, complete with a brand new fiberglass boat, motor, beer cooler, & large-breasted naked stripper bartenders to serve the beer. The kids will also bear the responsibilities of baiting the hooks and removing all captured fish from those hooks.

If a gift of this kind cannot be given by the kids, porno, a Weber grill, or video games will be acceptable substitutes. Anything with kung-fu, charcoal, or lesbians should suffice.

Finally, and this is very important, dad would like to listen to his Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, KISS, & The Who music as loud as he wants without the burden of hearing about the ex-boyfriends you had that were SO into those bands you cannot listen to them anymore. He’d like to play Bad Company’s, “Feel Like Making Love” and not have you roll your eyes & give a speech about how the song is just about getting laid. In fact, what he’d really like is for you to blow him TO that song and when it is over you will stop briefly to ask if he’d like you to put on some ZZ Top next.

Now THAT’S a Father’s Day!

Or maybe you could just get him a Chia Pet.