Welcome to another installment of “Dad, Interrupted.”
“Dad, Interrupted” is a weekly newsletter where I describe, in lighthearted, moderately embroidered stories, my family-man misadventures with my wife, my kids, my friends, my in-laws and assorted chuckleheads I bump into.
This week, I want to explore the mysterious, profound ties between a dad and his daughter. I want to do this for a surprising reason: competition. Here’s what I mean:
I have become a big fan of comedy on TikTok. Some of it is hilarious, and it’s not just the big names like Sarah Silverman and Ali Wong, and up-and-comers like Taylor Tomlinson. I also get a big kick out of real-life couples who do comedy shticks about their relationships. Check out the Tiktokers called “Emily Lou,” for instance, or “Tino and Shelby.” They are very funny. The best of these comedy couples remind me of the old “I Love Lucy” TV show, with Lucille Ball as the ditzy wife and Desi Arnaz as the long-suffering hubby.
But here’s the competitive thing: One other thread of comedy Tiktoks is dads teasing their daughters by talking to them loudly in teen slang in public, which of course mortifies the girls. “I’m just sayin’, my day was slappin’” loudly says one dad to his increasingly irritated daughter. “I mean it’s low-key fire, right?” says another dad.
I have no idea what these guys are saying, but as comedy this stuff is very minor league. It can be very funny to tease your kids and spouses, but you have to do it in a witty, artful, subtle way. What I’m saying is I think I am much better at being clever at this than these TikTok guys.
For proof, I’ve put together these examples of ways I and a friend of mine have irritated, irked, aggravated and annoyed our loved ones:
“The Goonies,” our daughter Clara’s all-time favorite movie, was primed to roll on the TV. She had arranged her viewing camp in the exact middle of our milk-chocolate-colored couch. Her phone sat to her left, quickly grabbable for teen texting; the remote was on her right, ready to pump up the volume for Chunk’s confession and other “Goonies” highlights. Orange juice and a stack of Little Schoolboy shortbread cookies beckoned from the coffee table, reachable with just a little stretch.
Clara headed to the bathroom. When she returned it would be showtime. But I’m not talking only about showtime for “The Goonies.”
As soon as I heard the bathroom door close, I shifted all the items she’d arranged for her viewing convenience one-and-a-half inches beyond her grasp. Through trial and error, I’d learned over the years that if I moved them more than one-and-a-half inches she would immediately notice, and if it’s less than one-and-a-half inches then her flexible teenage ligaments would easily span the extra distance.
When Clara returned, I was in the exact position I was in before: lounging in our white chair, reading a magazine fully opened so that it hid my face. Like her mother, she’s good at reading faces. A fully opened magazine would prevent that.
Clara sat and pressed “Play.” Just as the evil Fratellis were speeding away in the opening jailbreak scene (I couldn’t see it but I could hear it), her phone buzzed. I heard a grunt— those teenage ligaments just couldn’t stretch far enough. She shifted a little, snatched the phone, and spoke briefly to someone named Lisa about someone named Liesl.
She hung up. “You’re deranged,” she said to me.
Behind the magazine I smiled my special Annoyer smile. That’s a capital A on “Annoyer” because I believe it’s a true profession.
I became an Annoyer at age 12. I was doing homework in the basement with my older sister Helen, then 18. The phone rang and I snatched it before she could.
“Hello?”
“Is Helen there?”
I paused for a moment, as if trying to absorb this question.
“Helen Flaherty?”
“Yes.”
Again I paused, apparently puzzled.
“I’m not sure. I think she may have gone out.”
A crack to my head — courtesy of Helen’s new high school ring from Queen of the Rosary Academy – made me change my answer.
“Oh, wait, she’s still here. Who shall I say is calling?”
“Bob.”
“Okay, Bob. And you’re sure it’s Helen Flaherty — F-L-A-H-E-R-T-Y — that you want?”
I didn’t hear Bob’s answer because Helen had wrested the phone from me. Then, while she had a nice chat with Bob, I built a barricade of my father’s barstools to shield me from Helen’s expected post-call assault.
Helen did pummel me after her talk with Bob, but here’s the thing: I remember none of the pain, just the joy of aggravating her.
Annoyers know that phone calls from boyfriends or possible boyfriends are rich opportunities for teasing someone. But even routine moments can be opportunities. For example, about 40 years after Bob called, I was sitting paying the bills in the kitchen, and my wife Jeanette was making breakfast.
“How’d you like your eggs?” she asks.
She is speaking quickly, which means she’s eager to get onto the next item on her day’s agenda. This is a good sign for Annoyers.
I look at her steadily, but say nothing.
“Sometime before sunset?” she says after waiting a few moments.
“Right. I was just thinking.”
Again I just look at her, and again I say nothing.
“Now,” she finally says.
“Sure,” I say companionably. “How about over easy?”
“Thank you sooo much,” Jeanette says, cracking an egg, spilling it into the pan, and chucking the shell into the compost bucket.
As she reaches for the second egg, I say, “the left one.”
She pauses. “Why are you still speaking?”
“I want the left egg over easy,” I say, “and the right egg sunnyside up. “That way the plate will look like our winking happy face pillow.”
She just smiles, but seems to be working the spatula with great energy.
After a few minutes, she hands me my plate and says,
“Sorry. Mr. Winky had an accident.”
She stalks off.
I smile to myself as I eat the eggs. Mission of aggravation accomplished!
My friend Jim is also an Annoyer. When he was a kid, he dressed up a pillow man with pants, shirt and baseball cap, and dropped Pillow Man from the attic right past his mother’s window. He made sure to dress Pillow Man in his own clothes, so she’d think not only that someone was plummeting to their death, but that that someone was one of her sons.
This is an example of world-class botheration.
Fake falling was also popular in Jim’s family. In the 70s, long before the strict security measures resulting from 9/11, Jim and his brother Scott would worm their way to the roofs of Manhattan skyscrapers. “We’re visiting our dad at his office,” they’d tell the doorman if there was one and if they were asked.
Both Jim and Scott grew up to be artists, and even as teenagers they knew something about the principles of perspective. So, once they reached the roof, they would angle themselves close – but not too close – to the parapet on the building’s edge. Then they would start to rotate their arms as if they were losing their balance, peering fearfully downward. To the anxious office workers gathering at the windows of the buildings across the street, the two boys seemed to be teetering on the very brink of the building, and of life. More onlookers gathered at more and more windows across the street, and Jim and Scott would waver more and more wildly. When they heard the sirens, they’d scram.
Wit is a big plus for Annoyers, which is one reason that those dad Tiktokers need to up their game. One prank I’ve never pulled but admire greatly for its elegance is this: Order a pizza but tell the pizza guy to leave it uncut. When it arrives, cut one piece for yourself, but cut it out of the center of the pizza and – this is important – in the shape of a pizza slice. Then tell everyone else to come and get it.
Like me, Jim continued his teasing ways after he got married. Jim’s wife and his son, Marcy and Sam, both love Tate’s chocolate chip cookies very, very much. As a seasoned aggravator, Jim knew that deep love for something spells great opportunity. So, from time to time, when Jim bought cookies, he did not buy Tate’s.
“I got your cookies, guys!” he’d say when he returned from the store. Once he is sure they are both looking, he slowly pulls out the Chips Ahoy cookies from the grocery bag. Then come the sounds of dismay and disappointment. This is catnip for the Annoyer.
When he does this, Jim is having fun. But he’s also saving money. Tate’s cookies cost much more than Chips Ahoy. Jim learned cheapness from his dad, but he also learned from him how to disguise his cheapness. Every year during the holidays, Jim’s dad would buy a skinny, ugly Christmas tree. He would do this purely out of tightwaddedness, but, and this is the genius part, he parlayed it into a sweet family tradition: We are the family, he’d say, That Loves the Sad, Ugly, Orphaned Christmas Trees That No One Else Will Buy.
Annoyers can also dispense justice where needed. Fate once threw Jeanette and I together for a week with a couple that was very, very unpleasant. One night when I was washing up, I got a notion of how to tell them the universe is against them. So before I left the bathroom I ran the hot water faucet until the water was very hot. Then I turned it off without running the cold water to temper it for the next user. I knew who that would be.
I settled into our bedroom, which was next door to the bathroom, and opened a novel by Colson Whitehead.
Soon, a shout pierced the wall. “Shit, that’s hot!” I looked at Jeanette and smiled.
“Why are you smiling?” she asked.
“This Whitehead guy is a very good writer,” I said.
Botheration