Happy Daddy's Day.

Things have been chaotic for me in the last few weeks, so I didn't do anything for my dad today except wish him a happy day and discuss my apartment situation. Bleh. I feel like a bad daughter.

The man is impossible to shop for and miles away and one of the most magnanimous people you could ever meet. I've never known how to tell either of my parents that at some point in college, I realized most of their kindnesses to me, to so many people, have been completely unnecessary.

Their compassion is not protocol. Their devotion every blistered, exhausting step of the way is highly atypical. I've stretched and stretched the threads of their love (and the bindings of their wallets) in my pursuits of MsAdventures and self-actualization and all that other crap I do that their parents never helped them with.

To say that my dad deserves everything his heart desires on not just one scorching summer day, but for the rest of his life, would be a complete understatement.

Happy Daddy's Day to the man who has helped me through thick and thin, including that one harrowing incident with a sock puppet:

When I was in elementary school, I had no work ethic. I never studied anything, I don't recall ever reading a textbook, and I didn't memorize my addition problems the way I should have. This seems to be typical, though. I coasted through Odem Elementary in G/T classes and loved watching Full House reruns.

My third grade teacher was Mrs. Stovall, a cold and stuffy woman I pretended to like. (For some reason, I couldn't allow myself to dislike a teacher until I got into college). Mrs. Stovall assigned a big project for our reading class - we had to make a sock puppet of our favorite author. I remember choosing Beverly Cleary or Judy Blume for mine, and blithely tucking the assignment into the back of my mind.

One day, my teacher casually mentioned that the sock puppet was due the next day. I knew my puppet could never be as beautiful as Leslie Elling's. I mean, her mom had a hot glue gun and fuzzy pom poms. I still didn't think it could be that hard to make a sock puppet, though. We had yarn and permanent markers at home. I'd be fine.

Sock puppetry turned out to be harder than I'd anticipated.

I don't remember if I had a tantrum or asked my dad for help or what. I do know that he was doing his best to come up with some way to make a more presentable sock puppet. He looked for red fabric to make the inside of a mouth for Beverly or Judy. My mom never sewed; she only occasionally mended things. She wouldn't be home from work for hours, so my dad always oversaw all the homework. But decorative assignments weren't exactly my dad's forte.

We were desperate for some decoration for my sad puppet. I remember my dad scolding me for using one of my socks for the puppet, and giving me one of his own large, white socks. He rummaged through his dresser drawers and found a source of red material - his favorite pair of shorts.

They were Ocean Pacific board-type shorts. Very retro cool. He wore them around the house quite a bit. He didn't wince when he cut into them to make a mouth...or when he sewed the red scrap onto the sock and saw how bad it looked. Later, he called my step-grandmother Betty who sewed all sorts of tacky decorations. She agreed to help, so we went to Wal-Mart for a new sock and then to her house. She quickly made eyes, eyelashes, and a perfect red mouth for Beverly or Judy.

I thought Betty was the hero when I went home with my puppet. When my mom got home, she was disappointed to see my dad's favorite shorts in pieces, laying in the trash. I remember she shook her head and asked why he had cut the shorts. He said, "Because that puppet needed a mouth." It was what he thought he had to do. I was immediately touched.

I don't know if this story makes sense to anyone but me. Maybe if you knew what little care my dad has for clothing, how rare and special it is when he does get attached to any item. (One time he thought he'd lost his beloved gray jacket in a movie theater and looked for the same old jacket on ebay). It meant so much to me that he'd sacrificed his red shorts.

Surely Leslie Elling's mom didn't do that.