Has anyone ever seen the movie called "My Big Fat Greek Wedding?" I swear that movie was a documentary of my life and family. They just replaced the Mexicans with Greeks, the tequila with ouzo, and the phrase, "Viva Mexico!" with the word, "Opa!" All to protect the innocent. But most importantly, they replaced my dad's use of caulk with the movie dad's use of windex.

Let me explain: In the movie, the main character's dad uses Windex as a fix all and cure all for any malady. Not only is it great for cleaning windows, but it also gets rid of warts/pimples, and helps with sprained elbows. Well instead of using windex, my dad uses caulk. As in the stuff used to seal window edges, bathtubs, and kitchen sinks. He walks around all day, caulk gun in hand, looking for things to caulk. It started out, innocently enough, during a small bathroom renovation project and has now snowballed into an avalanche of caulk mayhem. He caulked the thermostat to the wall. He caulked my mom's broken vase back together. He even caulked his car back together. Let me repeat that. He caulked his car back together, people. Some of the plastic seal that surrounds the outer edge of the driver's side window was falling off, so he caulked it back into place.

"Daddy, I think it's just time for you to buy a new car."

"No, mija. This car is still pretty new."

"You bought it in 1989, Daddy. It's time to put it out to pasture."

"You want me to drive you where? Hold on, mija, let me put the caulk away."

I told my dad about the windex subplot of the movie and how it compared to him. He laughed, agreed that it was funny, but did not think that he was anything like the movie dad.

Until today.

I called my dad, just to check in and see how he was doing without my mom around (my mom took a small trip to Mexico to visit family.) He said he was fine but he had noticed a small little rash on his forearm today. He had remembered how I told him that listerine gets rid of warts and pimples, so he decided to put it on his rash to see if it helped.

"You did what???"

"I put listerine on the rash. Maybe it will go away now."

"Why did you do that?"

"You told me that listerine got rid of warts and pimples. So I thought maybe it would get rid of this rash too."

"Daddy, the part about getting rid of warts and pimples was made up. It was from "My Big Fat Greek Wedding." It's not really true. Not only that, but you used the wrong thing. It was windex that they used. Not listerine!"

"Oh. Well at least the itching stopped. Opa!!"

I love my dad.

Labels: Parental Units, Viva Mexico