On my Facebook wall, my wife recently posted a picture of a signboard that said: “Being a Dad seems to consist mainly of being grumpy and knowing things.”
My daughters instantly agreed that the sign summed me up completely in just 13 words. I’m OK with that job description, especially the grumpy part.
Being a dad is a thankless job in which you are called on only to give advice, fix things and, once a week, hand over your entire paycheck without crying. And the other part? Knowing things? I’ll own up to that, as well. I pride myself on having the answer to anything and everything, even if it drives my family crazy.
It’s not that I’m a genius. (Well, I have my suspicions but have not actually been tested, at least not for intelligence.) I am a font of wisdom because I always have the answer at my fingertips — literally. It’s called Google. No matter what issue comes up, someone, somewhere on the internet has asked the question, and someone else has posted an answer or even a video of a solution.
When the toilet kept running and the handyman said he’d adjusted it, I was able to tell my wife within seconds that this was a Toto model CST634, and its factory fill valves cannot be adjusted. They must be replaced by part No. 4010. When the washing machine dial thingydoo wouldn’t pull out, I informed her we needed a replacement controller unit No. 2601850.
The other day, my wife was in a panic because her car was stuck in the driveway in park. As I walked out to the car, I Googled her make and model plus “stuck in park.” Sure enough, there was a video of some guy explaining that you had to pull this secret panel off the center console, reach inside and pull on a little yellow knob. Five minutes later, I walked back in the house, tossed her the keys and said, “All fixed!”
I do all this without acknowledging that, like Maria Sharapova or Lance Armstrong, I need just a little boost to achieve amazing results. The trick is to look it up while not looking like you’re looking it up.
We’ll be watching a movie, and someone will wonder how old Tom Cruise is. I will slip my phone out of my pocket, crudely thumb out “TOM CRUISE AGE” and then pipe up, “Fifty-four! His birthday is in July!” At a bar, I will peer into my lap under the table and announce that I ordered the 60-Minute IPA because I like a powerful but balanced East Coast IPA with a lot of citrusy hop character.
My son will call from college and say he’s having trouble sorting out the political theories of ancient eggheads John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. I will sprint across the room to my laptop, knocking over chairs, before announcing (casually) that both advocated political liberalism and religious tolerance, but their conceptions of human nature differed greatly.
I process so much data these days that I no longer am able to retain information. (I just had to go back a reread the previous paragraphs as I’ve already forgotten what this column is about.) But it’s important to me that I be seen as the Oracle, the guy who knows it all.
Last weekend, we were trying to clean the marble floor of our master bathroom. We’d had a fancy toilet paper stand for years, and when we moved it we realized it wasn’t all that fancy because it had rusted, leaving stains. As my wife scrubbed, I quietly pulled out my phone and thumbed in “cleaning marble.” In seconds, I found a video of housecleaning tips. I ran downstairs, got a bottle of lemon juice and brushed past my wife. Einstein saves the day again.
A couple of minutes later I watched the entire video, then read the comments. Almost all of them were from people pointing out that lemon juice is an acid and will eat its way through marble in no time. I ran back upstairs, yelling at my wife to get out of the way.
The sign is still accurate. If I’m not always smart, at least I got grumpy going on.
Peter McKay is a longtime Ben Avon resident and syndicated columnist. He can be reached at his website, www.peter-mckay.com.
First Published: April 29, 2017, 4:00 a.m.
