One Day, I'll Drive a Ridiculous Car Too

Sometimes when I open my mouth, I hear my dad. Then I look around and Ben Lewis is no where to be found.

How did he manage to say something so quickly and leave? Where did he go?

Oh, it was me speaking. It's just that I am turning into my father.

Is this everyone's worst nightmare? Or is this everyone's eventual reality?

My dad and I are the kind of people who claim to be Type B, but we have so many Type A qualities that the latest edition of the DSM can't keep up with us.

We are the kind of family who can go days, weeks, sometimes even months without talking to each other, and it's, like, not even a big deal.

When we do manage a phone call or the obligatory visit, my dad and I talk over each other at a volume and a rate that my husband has deemed "OUT OF CONTROL" and yet, we always know what the other person has said. We're just ready to respond immediately, typically before the other person has finished speaking.

It's a more efficient form of communication, that's all.

Our interests might vary greatly, but the passion with which dive into our respective interests is eerily uncanny.

Actually, we both like bicycles.

And reading.

And DIY projects.

And seeing movies.

And the cosmos.

OK, we have nearly identical interests.

We don't enjoy trying new things until we're ready to do so. After all, you can't expect me to jump on a bandwagon unless I feel like I invented said bandwagon, so please don't mention Instagram to my dad because he hasn't invented it still. For now, he will only scoff at it.

We take the concept of "Practice Makes Perfect" quite seriously and once we've mastered something, we think of ourselves as the PIONEERS OF THIS MASTERY because NO ONE ELSE has toiled at this practice quite like us!

And most people really don't toil as much as we do because they just sort of get it after a few practice rounds, but that is because they aren't worthy of being PIONEERS.

Also, please don't buy cookies for our households because they won't stand a chance against us.

Here are some words or phrases that people have used to describe me that I have used to describe my dad with before:

-Stubborn
-Confident
-Teetotaler
-Smartass
-Intelligent
-Scary yet affable
-Awkward
-AWESOME!!!

Here are some words that people have not used to describe me that I would also never use to describe my dad:

-Fashionable or trendy
-Disorganized
-Lazy
-Sweet or kind
-Felonious or criminal
-Religious
-Trendy (Wait, I mentioned that. It bears repeating, though, because we instantly age anything we wear by virtue of our worldliness no matter how often we go shopping.)

Proof of our fashion prowess and worldliness

We can be annoying in social settings because it is very evident that we don't really want to be there. We don't mean to be anti-social, but group settings are tedious because people can be EXHAUSTING with their blither, blather, chatter nonsense.

I mean, haven't you heard the way we speak? IT IS THE ONLY FORM OF COMMUNICATION WORTHY OF OUR TIME.

With that, we can easily come across as high-handed, perhaps arrogantly so, and well, that's not really our problem. It's everyone else's!

Sometimes, I will have a life crisis dilemma that will nag and plague me to no end. No amount of driving in my car will seem to solve the problem (because that is where we Lewises come up with the best solutions: in our cars) so I just have to call my dad.

This isn't to say that he has a solution, because he doesn't always. Instead, he will teach me to appreciate the problem in the first place and give me some perspective like no one else can.

"Wow, have you tried doing this, this, or this?"

"Yeah, Dad, I tried all of those things. Like a million times." (So, unlike my dad, I do tend to exaggerate a little and I should also mention that everything can be a life crisis to me.)

"You know, it's actually very complex-"

"Yes, I know, that's why I'm stuck-"

"-it's almost like a catch-22, wherein you-"

"-I've been wondering what to do for ages-"

"-have to keep living your life with the problem-"

"-that I think I just have to live with it beca-"

"-because everyone carries burdens, but life keeps goi-"

"-use it might just be my burden for right now."

"-ng and it will seem so small in hindsight."

"Oh I just missed my turn."

"Why would you do that?"

"Dad, I didn't mean to."

"Then you should pay more attention to where you're going."

"I'M GOING NOWHERE WITH MY LIFE! THAT'S THE POINT!"

"You just had to take a right up on the hill, I thought?"

"I meant, like, existentially."

"Ohohohohohoh, right. Well, you have to get home first anyway."

People are so horrified to know that they are becoming carbon copies of their parents, and to some extent, I get it because I've met a lot of other people's parents and hoo boy, that would be horrifying. The older I get, though, the more I appreciate the qualities that I share with my dad because it's nice to know that I am growing into a good, responsible* person who cares about the environment (water conservation) without being obnoxious (homemade, resuable hemp shopping bags).

Some day, I will be able to turn on the lawn edger without his step-by-step "DID YOU TRY THIS?" checklist over the phone and when that day comes, it will be because I am finally paying someone else to work on the yard I finally felt like I invented the lawn edger and have become a Lawn Edging Pioneer after all of these years.

*OK, we aren't very good at picking people up from the airport. My dad and I have horrible track records for that which is NO EXCUSE because, hello, flight tracking technology, but since we didn't invent it from the get-go, we can't trust it still.