One Blind Mouse
A lot of the computer knowledge that most members of our generation take for granted is probably as foreign to members of the 
previous generation as planes are to cod. And my dad was not the sharpest cod in the drawer. I’ll excuse him the time that he accidentally deleted a document and instinctively reached toward the monitor to catch it like Coach did in Poltergeist. However, he called me in Maryland to tell me of an internet connection problem caused by the lack of a mouse pad. I thought this to be another one of his pranks and played along. But this was a joke that he wasn’t in on.
I drove the two hours north and handed him a Scarface mouse pad. It didn’t help, which was of course no surprise to me. “Well no shit it doesn’t work now. The thing hasn’t had a thing since you brought it here.” Loosely interpreted through his body language, he still blamed the mouse pad. And by now, it was of course too late as the mouse had already been contaminated from prolonged unprotected mousing and I “didn’t know shit about shit.” He bought a new mouse on his own this time.
After I rewired the motherboard in front of him to fix his internet connection issue, he was still proud of his diagnosis and problem-solving ability and convinced it was the new mouse that made all the difference. Now he could get back to his internet poker and hotornot.com.
Happy Father’s Week 2011
Happy Father’s Day to all the fathers out there! I just finished watching Big Fish and bawling my eyes out, which has been a Father’s Day routine of mine since he passed back in 2005. And since way back in 2010 (not a misprint), I’ve been running a Father’s Week tradition on this website where I’ll post a different story about my father every day of the week directly after Father’s Day. Or at least when I get around to it, hopefully sometime soon. Fred Frey told me shortly after my dad’s passing that the Native Americans believe in two deaths: the death of the body – which I’m assuming you can all figure out on your own, and the death of the soul – which occurs when the last story about a person is told. So as long as people keep telling stories about a person, that person’s soul will live on. According to Indians. Which I don’t think really exist anymore. Except for those that run casinos. Which happens to be something my father could get behind anyway. So I’m rolling with it for another year. It gives me a good reason to pour some energy into thinking about my father and into writing.
Since Father’s Day 2010, I have inherited another two fathers. My mom married a man named Dennis last November. He certainly treats her well and loves her and she loves him back. But as I am 36 years old and (somewhat) independent, I don’t really call him my dad. And I think that’s a pretty well understood dynamic. Again, he’s a great guy and I suppose technically a step-father, but I’m old enough to be a father (really, a grandfather at this point), so he will remain Dennis.
The other man, however, is the father of my lovely new bride, Tom Morrison. He was not fortunate enough to have a son and though he lives in Texas, somehow doesn’t like football, but he is a man I’m happy to call my dad. Which is something I can’t necessarily say for Jenn (zing!). See, I can kid since we’re family and all. Anyway, Happy Father’s Day, Daddy Morrison.
But everyone knows my father was one of a kind and I am sorry for everyone who didn’t have the fortune to meet him. When asked who my comedic inspirations are, I list him as #1 and Paul Reiser as #2. So you should enjoy the next couple posts. Check out last year’s stories in the upper right of the page or below and be sure to check back in the next few days for some more Dustin’s Dad stories.
I saw a man walking two elementary school-aged girls across a busy Baltimore intersection today against a very obvious red light. A car came by at a normal speed and missed the three of them by enough distance not to concern me. This man strangely got very upset at the car and despite the windows being rolled up and the distance the car was already away from the father-of-the-year, started yelling something to the nature of “I have kids here! What the hell do you think you’re doing?!” This man seemed to be under the impression that children trumped the laws of traffic. For the record, I’m against running over children with cars in any avoidable circumstance, but even if this was true, it most assuredly does not trump the laws of physics.
I thought to yell out and ask him why he was dragging his two girls across the street against the better advice of the solid orange hand and if he thought maybe that was an issue that should be addressed. Then I thought better of it. I’m not speaking to this man’s intelligence or his love for these two little girls – but in the equation that equals dragging these girls through traffic against even their better judgment, one of those variables is bound to be far lower than average.
