My Father's Revenge

10 funny things to do or not that will drive your adult children crazy after you die, or sitting on a cloud laughing your butt off at the show.

My father passes away a while back, he had a house in Portland Oregon and some of his last words to my sister and I was about his house. He smiled at me and said “it’s going to be a chore” and he wasn’t kidding…

My father had been plotting to get back at us for the headaches we gave him over the years, and we just didn’t know it. After we all arrived at the house that my sister and I had inherited (to assess the size of the chore, and to find the hidden bars of gold), we found that we did indeed have a chore. I was going to learn how to be a handy man whether I wanted to or not. We’re still looking for the gold. It’s got to be around here someplace.

If my dad had made a to-do list for his revenge it would have looked something like this:

1. Don’t put an exhaust fan above the stove. 40 years of accumulated bacon grease on the kitchen ceiling is handy. One of the door hinges in the house might start to squeak, or you might want to fry up some eggs. You just can’t have too much bacon grease.
2. Don’t throw away that junk mail from 1969. One day that Montgomery Ward’s advertisement featuring lawn chairs will be a collector’s item and the kids will be able to sell it on ebay.
3. Don’t throw away that mobile phone from 1985. You may want to jump start your car sometime and that battery pack would be just the ticket.
4. Do string electrical cords from one end of the house to other. No phone jack upstairs or in the bedrooms? Not a problem, as they make connectors and wires for that. Not enough outlets? Not a problem! That’s why they invented power strips and extension cords. And don’t forget the multi adapters!
5. Do use lots and lots of duct tape to do repairs around the house. (My dad would have fit right in at the Possum Lodge hanging out with Red Green.)
6. Do let possums live in your shed, they make interesting pets and really don’t mind when you move the box they’re sleeping in.
7. Do nail up some wood paneling and leave it there 40 years after the roof leaks and damages the ceiling,
8. Do stuff old socks in the cracks for insulation where cold air is blowing in through the rigged up repair job on a window upstairs.
9. Do cover the puddle of mystery goo on the floor of your old pickup truck with an old T-shirt.
10. And lastly, never, never, never clean or paint your bedroom walls. That layer of nicotine from the 70s when you smoked is a natural insect repellant.

We did find some stashes of treasure; my dad had a philosophy about watches, don’t buy a watch that costs more than $9.95. He always seemed to have a new watch, “all perfectly good, and only $9.95 at Walmart” he would say. We found the can that he kept all of his broken watches, some dating back to a Pre-Walmart time. I’m sure they were still purchased for under $9.95, and none of them were made of gold.

My sister and I loved our dad and we miss him very much. He was a good guy and everyone loved him. He had some lifelong friends that he could always count on, and they were always a source of entertainment for me. So dad, here’s to you, I miss you and I crack open a can of Hamms in your honor.