I Am Completely Serious

Here is a story about his abilities that I think is pretty interesting! And also depressing. Also that.

( Warning for death. )

Me, on the phone: Bye, Mom -

Dad, yelling somewhere behind her: ASK HER IF SHE WANTS TWO CATS

Me: I don't want the cats.

Mom: She doesn't want the cats, dear.

Dad: No! Give me the phone, give it to me!

Mom: *sigh*

Dad, solemnly: Now, honey, listen. There are two new cats here.

Me: I am all catted out.

Buoyancy the Cat, lying beside me apparently asleep: *actually growls??? which he never does??????*

Me: ...And Bu just actually growled??? Which he never does?????? - So, his answer's also no!

Dad: Just come look at them, honey, please.

Me: Take those cats to the shelter.

Dad: No, listen, listen, they're really talented, they're smart, they were singing - they joined hands and sang the Puss in Boots song -

Me: This sounds unlikely, Dad!

Dad: They were singing together the whole way to the house in the car!

Me: This is not a point in the cats' favor.

Dad: The cats are here. They're here at the house. They're here. *hangs up*

(He will probably take them to the shelter.)

Dad, in a crowded family restaurant: I'm really enjoying my new Magic Bullet, I'm using it every day -

Me: Dad! No!

Mom: Dear...

Dad: What? What?!

Me, growing more southern under stress: I swear to god we have talked about that term so many times -

Mom: Can you please just call it a "blender"...

Dad: We're going to a thing for [name], they're giving him an award.

Me: What kind of an award?

Dad: It's a Jewish thing, he's... he's Jew of the Year.

Mom: No.

Dad: He is! It's a Jewish thing, a Jewish organization's giving him an award.

Me: The award is probably not "Jew of the Year."

Mom: It's not.

Dad: Yes, it is! It's a Jewish thing, it'll be full of Jews, and they'll all be like oy gevalt, oy gevalt -

Me: This is exactly why you've never won Jew of the Year.

Buying a toy and thinking “I’m going to have to keep this hidden from Dad, he’ll want one but he’s not old enough.”

This was basically just spell-checking pleadings and asking me if his “wording made sense.” He didn’t actually usually change his wording if I said it didn’t, he just enjoyed it when I tried to tell him he was lawyering wrong.

When I was thirteen, though, he had a case in which someone had been found to have some illegal material on his work computer. This guy assured Dad that he’d just gotten said illegal material as attachments to spam, and that he hadn’t wanted any of it.

The prosecution gave us copies of the emails in question with full headers, and the headers obviously rendered these documents far too intimidating for Dad. He got home, handed them to me, and asked me to look over them and explain them to me.

I hope that the information which I have presented here has instilled in you an appropriate sense of dread.

The actual illegal stuff had been redacted out, but the “benign” files had not. These included a photo of a woman posing suggestively next to her horse. This image formed an important part of a long-running conversation that Dad’s client had been having with her!

I have never stopped telling my dad that he is lawyering wrong.