My Dad

So my Dad emails me yesterday.  A whole email for two words....

"Running yet?"

And no, he wasn't referring to me.  He knows I jiggle too much to run.  And if he didn't know that, he does now.

No, from up in the subject line I knew he was talking about something else running....

"Subject: Walleye"

So for the record, the whole email went like this...

Subject: Walleye
Running yet?

Isn't that such a great email?
Are you at a total loss as to what it's even referring to?
Are you wondering if my Dad is coherent?
Are you thinking to yourself, "why is she writing a blog post about this?"

Good.

I have you right where I want you.

I think.

Let's clear up the reason for the email right off the bat, shall we? Because that is not the point of this post anyway.  He was referring to the Walleye fish that run through these parts in the spring. My Dad's a good Boy Scout, so he likes to know the happenings of random wildlife and weather and outdoor things in general.  Especially since we live "in the North" and different things happen up here than down there "in the South."

But the point of this post is this: I just think it's funny that my Dad emails this way.  He almost writes like it's a telegram from the 1940's.

Subject: Walleye [stop]
Running yet? [stop]

That's probably what he should be typing, since that's how he emails.

But believe me... he's gotten better at emailing.  Back when he first started he used to email all of us kids (my brother, sister and I) in ALL CAPS.

Subject: WALLEYE
RUNNING YET?

After about a year or two of this ALL CAPS emailing behavior my sister and I staged an intervention.

"Dad, you do know that when you type in all caps that means you're YELLING AT US?"

"Huh."

And no, he wasn't asking, "Huh???"  He was stating, "Huh."

What can I say, he's a man of few words that answers things with a grunt of, "Huh."

By the way, the ALL CAPS emailing continued for years after that intervention.  Apparently my sister and I aren't good at those.

But what cracked us up even more than his emailing in ALL CAPS, was the way my Dad would end emails.

Yes, after my Dad had extracted all of the information from you that he needed he would simply reply with an old, "10-4."

This made my sister and I giggle to no end.

I half expected him to write, "10-4 good buddy," seeing he's from Texas and all, but he never went that far.  Probably too much to type.

Yes, that one still makes us giggle.  In fact, I'm giggling now.

But nothing compares to when my Dad got an ipad the day after Thanksgiving!  I think we all groaned over that one.

My brother and sister were with him when he got it and the questions started the second he unpacked the box and probably realized it was a Mac computer and not a PC. Question after question after question.

My brother finally called me and whispered over the phone, "I can't wait till they come up there to be with you at Christmas. YOU'LL get to answer all of his ipad questions."  And then I'm pretty sure he evil laughed as he hung up.

And when he came, he did have a few questions, but by then he had mostly questioned my brother enough to get all the information he needed.  I'm sure he probably even emailed my brother a nice "10-4" for good measure letting him know that he had extracted all the information he needed from him and he was done now.

But I will tell you, my Dad LOVES his ipad.  He seriously carries it with him EVERYWHERE.  And I'm not even exaggerating when I say everywhere. I literally mean EVERY. WHERE.

Case in point: Christmas Day at my house. We're opening presents.  What's Dad doing? Looking up something on his ipad....

My parents are SO killing me for posting this picture!

He carries his ipad around with him like a woman carries her purse.

He loves that thing.  I'll call him to tell him something and he'll say, "Huh. I'll have to look that up on my ipad." And before we've even hung up, he's already on it extracting information.

I bet he even pats his precious ipad and says... "10-4, good buddy. 10-4."

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