“Hi, I’m Mel. I like Mountain Dew and wrestling. Want to shake hands like men?”

I recently stumbled upon Desmond Tutu’s quote about a saying his father had taught him:

“My father always used to say, ‘Don’t raise your voice. Improve your argument.’”

I then began to ponder all of the eloquently wrought sayings that my father has taught me over the years and my brain feelers delicately landed on this one:

“If it were raining pussy, I’d get hit with a dick.”

Regardless of your stance on pussies or dicks (I’m assuming we’re all in the “pro” category in some capacity here. If not, don’t let the dick hit you on the way out), I think we can all agree that my father is as awesome as he is horrendously unfiltered in the company of young children. That’s not to say he doesn’t have some of his quirks which most people would find terribly disconcerting if not absolutely adorable.

For example, Mountain Dew. You know the stuff right? A warm sludge of piss in a bright green bottle? The stuff you used to remove paint off that antique chair after one of your frenemies pinned a chair painting project onto Pinterest, and you decided it was a good idea to show her up by taking on the project yourself and borrowing one of your dad’s Mountain Dews, and after you expertly showered yourself in neon toxic beverage you began to cry uncontrollably that you never went to grad school and instead, are wedged in a tight corner of your garage attempting to paint a chair that won’t love you back? Yeah, you know the stuff. Anyways, Mel drinks it like it’s his job and when I was younger I literally thought it was until I realized his real job was buying new fridges where Maria could proudly display her scary newspaper clippings and store bottles of wine for “company.”

But Mel isn’t “all work, no play. “  He’s also an extreme fan of Monday night wrestling (really, that’s still a thing. No seriously, they actually still put that on television) and Next Generation Star Trek reruns that incited my confusing crush on a very much older Patrick Stewart (“Make it so.” Oh, I shall Captain, I shall). But his greatest source of entertainment is my daughter who is as wildly untamed as he is. And she is three.

What I admire most about Mel is that Mel is Mel, and there’s nothing you can do to pry that Mountain Dew out of his giant, John Cena-respecting hands. I’ve personally always wanted to be more like Mel, so I’ve decided to make the promise to myself to make no apologies for being me (hence the reason for this blog. Plus I like saying words like “dick” on the Internet).

So Mel, you may get knocked out by a dick (hehe) every now and then, but you’ll always be a pussy winner to me.

Okay, that was a weird last line. Let’s start over.

So Mel, you may get knocked out by a dick every now and then, but in my eyes, you win all the pussies.

I give up.