father averts yet another of my potential personal crisis

My father is one of my life-heros. He's just likeable. In fact, in my short life, I've yet to meet someone I find more likeable than  my own dear old dad.


So, it's just dumb luck that the apple (me) doesn't fall far from the tree. We share many qualities, including a love of college football, a propensity for waking up early on the daily, a hatred of "shopping around" to find the best deal,  the ability to find common ground with literally anyone we come into contact with, and the affinity for gratiutous comsumption of whiskey. He, on the rocks. Me, with diet coke. Hey, the way I see it, I'm well on my way.


One quality of my father's that I cannot claim to possess, however, is his handyman capability superpower. There is literally no project too large or small. Pops Drake will improvise his way through any task or challenge, not necessarily the most thorough and "up to code" way, but definitely the most convenient and efficient way. His penchant for problem solving has become a crutch that I lean on heavily when I'm met with the major, and sometimes minor, inconveniences and scrapes in life.


Remember yesterday when I mentioned in passing that I locked my keys in my car after my brother's 18th birthday dinner? No? Well, I did. I got to my car,  was fiddling around in my purse, as always, trying to dig my asshole ever-elusive keys out, and UREKA, they were sitting on the seat. Of my locked car. With all the windows rolled up completely. Smooth move, exlax.

 Luckily, I was able to flag down my parents. While my first instinct was to mutter "Fucking motherfucker!"and/or kick the side of my vehicle, then call one of my roomates to see if my spare set was hanging on the hook by the door 35 minutes away, (it was) and thus no help to my current state, dear old dad had other plans.

My father, dear, sweet, crisis averting father, saunters up to my car. He peers into the window, EXACTLY how I just did, and states to no one in particular/himself. "Oh, this will be easy." In the meantime, my mother, who had A COUPLE glassses of wine at dinner and may or may not have narrowly escaped taking a spill on her way to the bathroom mid-dinner, is wandering around the parking lot, and then disappears completely. Something about seeing if anyone at the funeral home next door would "lend" us a hanger. Manfriend and I are milling around like a couple of dicks in a parking lot, stranded.

My dad pops the trunk of his BMW and pulls out, I kid you not A KITE, A FLATHEAD SCREWDRIVER, AND A DOLLAR BILL.

That's all he comes back to my car with.

SPOILER ALERT:  In less than five minutes, I was in my car, driving again. Before my mother came back from discovering the funeral home was locked up and wandering around aimlessly some more.


Naturally, I'm skepical.


You'd have thought by now I'd have learned not to doubt the man.

Pops takes the dollar bill and places it at the crack between my door and the car's frame. He then wedges the screwdriver in to create a small opening that the kite string/plastic frame can fit into. The dollar bill's purpose is to prevent the paint on my car from being scratched. The screw driver wedge actually works relatively well, and the kite string, by some weird freak act of nature, is able to be jimmy-rigged around my door lock. By the way, thanks Jeep, for making car locks that still pop up/down. After several near-misses and failed attempts, Macguyver, aka my dad, manages to figure out a way to force the flimsy kite frame/string combination to catch and hold onto my lock, and forces it upward. Like buttaaaaaa.

He seriously made it look so easy that I have my suspicions about him and life of crime prior of marrying my mother, having a family, and running an olive company.

So, my logic is as follows: Since my father and I are incredibly alike, I will someday inevitably inherit this skill of improvisation. Then, a life of crime will be a viable option. I always like to have a backup plan.

Hope you have a weird, weird weekend.


XO Sara