Inspired by mk's comment about his dad's service in Vietnam in the most recent Pubski. Obviously, it doesn't have to meet any particular standard - Tell a story that is happy, sad, personal, or generic!
I'll start the thread off with the origin story for my family's dumbest inside-joke (so far).
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I've been told by friends and exes that my dad and I talk louder and faster than just about any two people they've met. Every time this gets brought up, my dad trots out his pet phrase, "We've just got a high baud rate!"
Now, that observation might be more of a reflection on the speed and intensity of Midwestern courtesy, but suffice to say that our cozy family dinners qualify as shouting matches to our friends and neighbors. To this point, I know we don't really process the things that get said in our family conversation. It's hard to even hear people sometimes over the din, let alone give their words ample consideration; The phrase "Drinking from a firehose" comes to mind.
Anyway. You ever sit in traffic and notice that periodically your blinker matches up with the car in front of you? In the midst of a raucous pre-dinner family conversation, everyone but my dad happened to sync their poignant pauses (read: spent a bare moment inhaling). My dad, evidently, had been taking the conversation on autopilot; as the silence breached, he says sagely, "Well, shit doesn't roll up hills two ways."
The silence elongated as everyone processed what he said.
The sheer absurdity of this made-up, meaningless, awful, shitty idiom hit us like a MAC truck. In a moment of collective mania, the entire family just bowls over laughing. My sister snorts milk out of her nose. My mom sets down the casserole. My dad, face red, is practically bouncing with laughter.
First to catch my breath, I provide the encore: "You plant it once, it's good enough!" Queue another round of fits. At this point, I can't tell if I'm laughing at the stupid aphorism or the idea that a room of people with professional degrees, published research, and a fucking judge are laughing at the conversational equivalent of a fart noise.
The fake aphorisms were never far away from that point on, and they've become a punctuation mark on the rambling way of my dad and I communicate. As soon as a conversation reaches its natural conclusion, one of us will make up a stupid saying to announce that we've crossed the finish line. It never fails to make me smile.
So, Hubski, as they say - "A watched pot boils over twice a day." What're some stories about your dad?