Conversations with My Father: Summer Visit Edition

(I spent last week in Virginia with my dad. If you haven't heard, we drive each other crazy.)

My Dad: What’re you looking at on your phone?

Me: Twitter.

My Dad: Oh, you’re on the Tweeter?

Me: It’s Twitter.

My Dad: What do you twit about?

Me: On Twitter, one tweets about…oh, never mind.

My Dad: Are you into politics?

Me: No, I definitely don’t enjoy politics on Twitter.

My Dad: I thought the Tweeter was all about politics.

Me: No, I do gay Twitter.

My Dad: Gay…? Is that a whole different Tweeter?

Me: No. Who you choose to follow kind of determines what kind of content you see.

My Dad: What’s the gay Tweeter like?

Me: It’s mostly nude selfies…

My Dad: Oh, are you posting a nude selfie?

Me: Um, we’re sitting in a car in your doctor’s office parking lot. Am I nude?

My Dad: I don’t think so?

Me: You don’t think…? Well, did you see me take a selfie?

My Dad: No?

Me: Okay then.

My Dad: But you know I do have really, really bad eyesight.

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My Dad (upon seeing me wearing a baseball cap): Are you wearing a baseball cap?

Me: Yep.

My Dad: Do you always wear baseball caps?

Me: Not always, but I wear them pretty often.

My Dad: Do you play baseball?

Me: They’re just to cover my head. Especially when my haircut grows out. I’m a lousy baseball player.

My Dad: I have a lot of baseball caps.

Me: Yes, I know. They’re littering your office.

My Dad: Do you want some of my baseball caps?

Me: GOD no.

My Dad: Well!

Me: I mean, no thank you.

My Dad: What’s wrong with my baseball caps?

Me: Well, for one thing, they’re all incredibly ugly.

My Dad: Well!

Me: Okay, let me put it this way. All your baseball caps either are emblazoned with the logos of various freight railroad lines…

My Dad: I will have you know that the railroads of the Eastern Shoreline directly contributed to the growth and development of the…

Me: And then the rest of them are gifts from your sister and they all have really obnoxious embroidered cats on them. I’m pretty sure one of them says I LOVES ME KITTY.

My Dad: You love cats.

Me: I do love cats but I do not want to proclaim that love to the world like a crazy cat person.

My Dad: So what’s on your hats?

Me: A couple of days ago I had on a Provincetown cap. Yesterday was our college…

My Dad: What’s on your hat now?

Me: Uh…it’s just a clothing logo.

My Dad (taking the cap and holding it a centimeter from his eyes): A clothing logo? It looks like…a baseball diamond.

Me: It’s supposed to be a pig. A...stylized...pig.

My Dad: A pig? What manufacturer of clothing has the logo of a pig?

Me: [mumbles]

My Dad: Come again?

Me (louder): NASTY PIG.

My Dad: So you won’t tell people you love cats, but you don’t mind telling people you love nasty pigs?

Me: That’s…pretty accurate, actually.

My Dad: And you wear a hat that tells everybody you like pigs.

Me: Yes, I do.

My Dad: And then other people who like pigs come up to you and say, ‘Hey, I like pigs too.’

Me: Depends on which bar I’m in.

My Dad: What?

Me: Nothing.

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(On the penultimate day of my visit, my dad had an invitation from his old college roommate to visit, so I drove him to Williamsburg, where we both went to college.)

My dad: Were you seeing anyone in college? You mother and I never heard if you were seeing anyone.

Me: Mostly I just slept around.

My dad: Your mother and I were virgins until marriage.

Me (snorting): Not I.

My dad: I don’t know whether it was from choice or whether it was just the way things were back then.

Me: Well, ultimately, if you’re happy with how it turned out, it doesn’t matter.

My dad: Who were you sleeping around with? Not that roommate of yours, [he names my sophomore roommate]?

Me: No. He didn’t know he was gay then.

My dad: Not that other roommate of yours, [he names my junior roommate]?

Me: God no. He was a crazy conservative Christian closet case.

My dad: You knew how to pick them, I guess. Didn’t you have a boyfriend at all?

Me: I kind of had one my junior year, but what a dick.

My dad: He had a dick? Or he was a dick?

Me: He had a huge dick. And he definitely was a huge dick.

My dad: Why, what did he do to be a dick?

Me: The biggest thing was that if we were going anywhere together on campus, he would make me walk twenty feet behind him.

My dad: Why?

Me: I guess he just didn’t want thinking people we were together.

My dad: It wasn’t because he thought you were funny looking?

Me: OUCH.

My dad: I didn’t mean it like that.

Me: Jeez, whose side are you on?

My dad: I mean, maybe he thought it would look funny for two boys to be walking together. Like you said, maybe it was just the way things were back then.

Me: Guys walk together all the time. You walked with your old roommate this afternoon.

My dad: Why did you stay with him for a year then?

Me: You heard me say he had a big dick, right?