Times are Tough

My dad never calls me. In fact, I dare say that he has no clue what my phone number is or where to find it. I am not mad about it, I mean I know my dad loves me and plus I find it semi-endearing. After all, my dad is a good old country boy. And good old country boys like my dad don’t worry about calling people and “touching base” they have better things to do.

They spend their days worrying about things like: the price of gas, what kind of meat to have for dinner, whether or not it is worth it to shoot the neighbors dog the next time it chases the chickens, where the mustard is, when a major earthquake will occur, when their children who live in the city will get mugged, when the Yellowstone caldera will erupt and cause mass destruction that will lead to a nuclear winter and the whole earth will die, how many packages of meat you can keep in the deep freeze, what will be on the History Channel tonight etc…When I call the house every once in a while my dad will answer, and we will chat for no more than 2 minutes.

A few months back when I called I was surprised when my dad was almost eager to talk to me. Well he was eager because he had something to say. I could hear him in the background “tell her to go buy some rice.” Excuse me, rice? Yes he needed me to get down to the store to buy some rice. Apparently the whole world was in a major rice shortage and I needed to get down to the grocery store and get my supply. The initial recommendation was followed by roughly 8 to 10 minutes of ranting about how tough times are these days. Keep in mind that he wasn’t speaking into the phone rather he was just speaking and my mom was holding the phone. I was catching about every 3rd word.

But I got the gist of it. He was worried. And I laughed and told my friends he was a “up in the night” and what not. But I guess because I love my dad and because, let’s face it I am somewhat like him, I somehow found myself down to the grocery store picking up three bags of rice. Yes, they are still sitting on my shelf but at least I know my dad would be proud and plus times are tough.