By JENNY ALPAUGH – Print Managing Editor
Living life with an eccentric father has been anything but boring.
Who needs a beach umbrella cover if they don’t have a beach umbrella?
Upon winning a contest hosted by Office Depot, my father’s famous business card that can be found on him at any time could be seen for a week on a billboard in Atlanta, Ga. Cartoon by William Kissane.
In the rationale of my dad, if the umbrella cover is on sale, we do.
For as long as I can remember, my dad has had an obsession with sales. He loves the clearance racks at grocery stores. And don’t bring him near a yard sale unless you want to bring home hundreds of items you don’t need.
This is only one of my dad’s numerous strange attributes.
He’s a half-Cuban, who grew up speaking both Spanish and English, yet he pronounces the Spanish word for cheese like Qway-so (queso).
He’s always been an entrepreneur with millions of ideas. At the age of 7 he sold everything in his room he could bear to part with for a whopping five dollars. This profit was used to begin his candy bar business.
My dad also had his own ice cream truck when he lived in Florida, luckily this second encounter with the ice cream business was much more successful than his first. A few years earlier he had been fired from an ice cream shop for falling asleep while filling cones.
He’s also wanted to start a zip lining business. He’s had his own vending machines. He even considered opening a beauty shop after buying the supplies of one that went bankrupt.
His business ideas are too good to keep to himself, so he has to share them with almost everyone he meets.
Talking is one of my dad’s greatest loves. Once he starts a conversation with someone, whether it is about one of his ideas, or something else, they should expect the conversation to last 30 minutes. If they’re lucky.
The best strategy is to just smile and nod and wish that he’ll stop talking.
Though it’s very unlikely this wish will be fulfilled. My dad can talk for hours on end about almost any topic. And he’ll talk to anyone.
Literally anyone.
The mailman who’s trying to finish his route; the sick lady in the doctor’s waiting room who just wants to be left alone; the waiter who isn’t even taking care of our table.
Once you get sucked into a conversation with him, expect to be given one of his business cards. He owns his own air conditioning business and is constantly advertising it.
His simple red and white magnetic business cards are everywhere.
He sticks them on mailboxes. Random cars. The refrigerators of anyone’s house we visit.
For a week, his business card was even on a billboard in Atlanta because he won a contest he entered at Office Depot.
Everyone suspected him of lying when he told of us his prize, but lo and behold on our way to Atlanta, there was that familiar red and white card on a rotating billboard.
While we’re on the subject of times when his supposed lies turned out to be true, let me tell you about the time we made the news.
It was about two years ago when more than 8 inches of snow fell in Athens. Our power was out, so we headed to our neighbor’s house because they had a gas burning stove.
“By the way,” he said. “I just talked to a Fox 5 News reporter; they’ll be here in about 30 minutes.”
“Sure,” we said. “Whatever you say.”
None of us believed him for a second.
An hour later we heard a knock on the door.
We sent my younger sister to open the door, and soon, we heard her yell, “There are some people with microphones and cameras here!”
Apparently he was driving around town when he saw a news reporter outside a grocery store. He struck up a conversation and just happened to mention that the neighborhood was coming together to survive the terrible snowstorm. Like I said, my dad will talk to anyone.
As the holidays approach my dad’s strange personality only becomes stranger. His newest idea is pull-down blinds with a picture of a decorated Christmas tree on them, so when they’re pulled down, neighbors think you’ve decorated.
But I don’t wish for a second that I had a more “normal” dad. If I did, who would be there to call the Fox 5 News Team?
