I helped my dad.
Nothing instills anxiety in a kid faster than their dad asking them to help him with some project around the house. Well, maybe “asking” isn’t the right word. My dad would simply inform me that I was about to help. My dad believed in do-it-yourself and as far as I can remember, he never hired a contractor for anything.
Most of you can probably relate to this. It never failed that Dad would get me to help, and it never failed that I would do it wrong. I’m convinced it’s absolutely physically impossible to hold the flashlight on the right spot while your dad is working. It has something to do with the Earth’s rotation in relation to light particles being pulled by gravity as they pass through the time warp continuum.
Don’t-Let-the-Ladder-Slide was another fun game. Dad would lean a very flimsy ladder against the house at a much too steep angle then tell me to keep it from sliding as he ascended. Keep in mind that when I was 12 years old, I weighed all of 80 pounds soaking wet, so keeping that doggone thing from sliding was tough. Sometimes it would slip a little and Dad would yell down, “What in the bleepedy bleep are you doing?”
Learn-Your-Tools was also a great way to spend a Saturday morning. Kids start playing this game as soon as they can walk. Picture your dad under a car or tractor and he yells out to you, “Bring me a 9/16 box-end wrench.” Sure, you don’t even know your ABCs yet, but you’re supposed to know this. You finally guess and take him something and he yells, “That’s not it; this is a ball ping hammer!”
“Just keep the chain tight.” I don’t know how many times Dad told me this when he was getting ready to tow a vehicle. He would never pay for a tow truck or mechanic, so we’d pull it home and if it was an easy fix – great. If not, he’d junk it and buy another clunker. No matter how hard I tried, half the time the chain dragged the asphalt causing sparks to fly off the road and obscenities to fly out Dad’s window.
As a kid I used to wonder what the odds were that I could do every single thing wrong. As I got older, I finally realized I wasn’t necessarily doing them wrong; I just wasn’t doing it the way Dad wanted me to. Almost every project ended with Dad getting angry and yelling, “Just go to the house.” I would frown and look sad, but on the inside I was laughing wondering how he could think this was a punishment.