Last weekend, I took my dad to the mall to buy him a new pair of shoes. He\u2019s ninety-two, but still sharp as ever\u2014especially with his words. After shopping, we stopped at the food court for a quick bite. While I was focused on my sandwich, I noticed Dad staring at someone a few tables away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A teenager sat there with hair spiked high and dyed in bright streaks of green, orange, blue, and red. He was definitely hard to miss. Every time Dad looked over, I held my breath, hoping he wouldn\u2019t say anything. But he just kept studying the boy quietly, almost curiously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Eventually, the teen noticed and rolled his eyes. After a few more glances from Dad, the boy finally snapped, \u201cWhat\u2019s wrong, old man? Never done anything wild in your life?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I froze. I knew that tone. It was a challenge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Without missing a beat\u2014and without even looking offended\u2014Dad calmly wiped his mouth with a napkin and replied, \u201cActually, son\u2026 once, when I was about your age, I got so wild I drank too much and ended up kissing a parrot. I\u2019ve just been wondering if you might be my boy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The entire food court burst into laughter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The teen didn\u2019t say another word. His friends lost it. I almost choked on my drink. And Dad? He just continued eating calmly like nothing happened, a tiny smirk tugging at his lips.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That\u2019s my father\u2014quiet, observant, and armed with the sharpest humor you\u2019ll ever meet. Even at ninety-two, he doesn\u2019t just have stories\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He makes them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Last weekend, I took my dad to the mall to buy him a new pair of shoes. He\u2019s ninety-two, but still sharp as ever\u2014especially with his words…. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12669,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"views":1346,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12668"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12668\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12670,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12668\/revisions\/12670"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}