My dad, who did very well in his career and as a real estate "mogul" always told me not to be ashamed to brown nose others.
Worked for him. He kissed his bosses' butts and rose to the top in his organization.
He used to always say (probably weekly, maybe several times a week), "don't cut off your nose to spite your face."
It took me forever to understand that, but eventually I understood. He also said never to burn bridges. It took me a while to put that into practice as well.
Finally, my dad never put up with "are we there yet."
If we asked that, or "where are we going?" He would always answer the same by asking us, "Se Habla Espanol?"
That means, "do you speak spanish?"
It was his way of telling us he was taking us to Tijuana and leaving us at the orphanage. He thought that was hilarious, and laughed constantly at it. We didn't think it was funny, even though we knew he was joking. Like most dads, he told the same jokes over and over.
I still ask his advice a lot, mostly about home maintenance, real estate, and purchases of appliances, cars, etc. He has excellent advice. I don't ask about parenting, because we have a spoken (yes, spoken) agreement that I won't criticize his parenting if he won't criticize mine. He used to offer unsolicited advice, and one day I confronted him on it and said, "you know, just because I parent differently than you did doesn't mean I'm disrespecting you or questioning the way you raised me. It means I live in a different generation with a different set of parameters that I didn't set. Society won't let me parent the way you did."
He understood that, and we agreed that our different parenting styles are not better or worse. It's been great. He no longer criticizes or offers that kind of advice, and I never criticize the horrible/wonderful way he raised us.
When I was a kid, if I got goofy in a public place, my dad had this perfect way to gently set his hand on my head, and then use his middle finger to flick me really hard. I mean HARD. He had a gift. And to outside observers, they'd have no idea I was in absolute ten-second agony. It was like martial arts or something. Just a perfect snip.
And if I were to cringe and yell, "OW!" he'd do it again. One snip on the head was all it took. I would very slightly cringe, hold back the tears, and ten seconds later I was a little gentleman. Same for my brother.
Other than that, I got a couple spankings up to the age of about eleven (I remember each one and deserved worse). And he only hit me with a closed fist one time, when I was about 14, for telling him that he wished failure upon me. I said, "you just don't want me to be successful at anything," when he frowned on my yardwork business started with a friend (because people called to complain, and because it affected my grades, even though we were making good money for kids our age). He slugged me in the gut, knocking the wind out of me. I was questioning his love and devotion, and I actually learned from it (even though I acted like a pansy and told mom, who got mad at him....in hindsight, I should have sucked it up).
He was (and still is) an outstanding father with a gazillion faults, like me.
Also, I've been fortunate enough that I've confessed just about everything to him, including what happened to the Audi and how that hole got in the wall (handgun accident) and we can laugh about it now.
Yeah, a friend loaned me his handgun when I was about 15. I never even considered it a weapon in terms of people. I lived out west and our home was surrounded by canyons, so we went out shooting a lot, mostly rifles and shotguns. Abandoned cars, freezers, bottles, rabbits, etc. were our enemies, not people.
So, one day I was out shooting bottles with my buddy's .22 handgun, and while returning to the house and walking down the hall, I was confused about the safety. Which way was the safety supposed to go to keep the gun safe?
What better way to find out than to pull the trigger, right? DOH.
So, the gun fired (thank goodness I was the only one home). The bullet went through the wall downstairs and into my brother's room. I found the slug in one of his jackets in his closet. Phew.
So, I grabbed a piece of masking tape and covered the hole in the hallway wall, and by miracle the tape was exactly the same color as the paint. Seriously, stepping back two feet one could not see the damage. The tape blended perfectly.
It took them a year to find it (yep, a whole year) and by then I had a great lie: I accidentally slammed into the wall with the fishing spear I made in metal shop. Hahahaha. Worked perfectly. Didn't get in trouble at all.
By the time I confessed the true story, twenty years had passed.
My brother and I were so sneaky and mischievous, but my father says we were good kids because (unlike almost all of our friends), my brother and I never got arrested for anything.
Okay, I did get arrested once, but the charges were dropped at the police station because I really had nothing to do with it.
Oh, and there was the time when the cops brought me home (I was ten) for throwing rotten lemons at passing cars. I cried all day (especially after dad screamed at me for almost killing people. It was his best acting job ever, because I knew he was trying not to laugh, but he had to send us a message).
Oh the stories.
You opened a can of worms starting this thread.
There was one time, skiing in Northern California, that I got tired of waiting on the family. I progressed beyond them and asked to ski alone for awhile. As I came down the mountain to meet my family for lunch, I was cruising along, listening to Van Halen on the Walkman, when I saw a pool of blood in the snow. I stopped and looked at it, thinking, "man, someone ate it big time."
Then, when I got to the lodge, I walked up to my family and laughed loudly, "someone wiped out big time up on Silverado (a ski run at June Mountain)."
My dad turned around and gave me the evil eye. He was holding a bloody towel to his face.
This always caused him to bust up laughing! I was glad I could bring some entertainment value into his life.
