that coated it, while I waited to be acknowledged.
“So, what can I do you for, Sam?” the doctor said.
“The kid’s got some uneasiness in his joints. I was hoping you could help him, because it’s really a pain in his ass. Tell him, son.”
“Well, it sort of feels like I’m being tickled from the inside of me—”
“Goddamn it, use medical terms, he’s a doctor,” my dad barked.
The old doctor performed the same tests my other doctor had and then turned to my dad, as if I wasn’t in the room.
“I think the culprit here is your boy had quite a growth spurt, and it put a lot of strain on his joints. Now he’s feeling the effects of it.”
“So you’re saying he grew funny, huh?” my dad replied.
“Well, more or less, yes.”
At last I had an answer.
We left the doctor’s office and, as we were walking down the hospital hallway, my dad turned to me and whispered, “Shit. I could’ve told you that. Fucking doctors, huh?”
On the Proper Technique for Growing a Garden
“It’s watering plants, Justin. You just take a goddamned hose and you put it over the plant. You don’t even pay rent, just do it. Shit.”
On Moving Out of My Parents’ House for the First Time
“I’d say I was gonna miss you, but you’re moving ten minutes away, so instead I’ll just say don’t come over and do your fucking laundry here.”
On Furnishing One’s Home
“Pick your furniture like you pick a wife; it should make you feel comfortable and look nice, but not so nice that if someone walks past it they want to steal it.”
On Coming Over to My New Apartment Unannounced and Seeing My Room for the First Time
“Why is there a mural of two people fucking on your wall? . . . Son, let me be the first to tell you that you’re not Andy fucking Kaufman. When you get famous maybe shit like this will be funny, but right now all it says to me is this kid never gets laid. Ever.”
On My Response to Having My Tires Slashed
“Oh, don’t go to the goddamned cops. They’re busy with real shit. I don’t want my tax dollars going to figuring out who thinks you’re an asshole.”
On Living on a Budget
“Why are you going over your monthly expenses?
. . . No, let me shorten this process for you:
You make dog shit, so don’t spend any money.”
On My Friend’s Response to Getting a Minor-in-Possession Ticket
“He cried? Jesus, don’t ever have that happen to you. . . . Well, no, try not to get a ticket, sure, but if you do, don’t cry like a fucking baby.”
On Getting an Internship at Quentin Tarantino’s Production Company
“That is one ugly son of a bitch. . . . Oh, yeah, no, congratulations. If you see him, try not to stare at his face if you’ve eaten anything.”
On My Interest in Going Skydiving
“You won’t go do that, I know it. . . . Son, I used to wipe your ass, I know you better than you know you.
. . . Fine, Mom used to wipe it, but I was usually nearby.”
On the Arm Injury That Ended My Baseball Career
“I’m really sorry, son. If you’re pissed off and you need to blow off some steam, let me know. We’ll go smash some golf balls or something. . . . Oh right, the arm. Well, there’s other, nonphysical ways to blow off steam.”
On Pringles Flavors
“I’m not eating something called ‘pizzalicious.’ That’s not even a fucking adjective. You can’t just add ‘licious’ to nouns. That’s bullshit.”
You Never Stop Worrying About Your Children
“They’ll gut you like a pig, piss on your corpse, and then say ‘Welcome to Mexico!’”
By my junior year of college, I had moved out of my parents’ house and into a three-bedroom house in Pacific Beach, San Diego, which I shared with my best friend, Dan, and a girl we were friends with. Even though my new place was only ten minutes away from my parents’, it might as well have been in Sweden for all my dad cared. There was no way he was going to visit.
“I don’t want to know what goes on in that house,” he said when I finally asked him if he wanted to come check it out.
“Dad, there’s nothing bad going on in the house.”
“No. You’re not understanding me. I don’t
I was living on my own, but I still headed home once a week to do my laundry, raid the fridge, and take advantage of anything else I possibly could while I was there.
“You just barge in and take whatever you want, whenever you want it. It’s like you’re the goddamned SS and I’m living in fucking Nazi Germany,” my dad said after coming in from the backyard, where he was watering his roses one afternoon, to find me in the kitchen eating the bagel with cream cheese he had prepared for himself just moments earlier.
Even though he wouldn’t admit it, I always knew my dad was happy to see me when I came home. I’d usually head over at night, when he was home from work, and we’d have a nice chat about things that were going
