My Fellow Inebriates,

If I could give my dad a bunch of gifts for Father’s Day instead of one, I would. I’d give him the following:

• Beer
• Some extra brain cells (unfortunately I don’t exactly have a superfluity, too bad for Dad)
• A power-tool instruction book wrapped up in gauze and surgical tape

You see, yesterday Dad had a classic DIY lapse. He wasn’t drunk, nor had he even been drinking. He knew exactly what he should do and how to do it. In fact, just a month before he’d authored a manual on correct installation procedures. But yesterday Dad got lazy and decided to drill something while holding it in his hand.

What the thing was doesn’t matter. He was screwing around with the car stereo, jury-rigging some kind of metal plate so he could somehow stuff more stereo into a car that, aside from what he deems its sub-par sound system, gives him a total boner. The project has been a stereophilic odyssey, draining the car battery several times over and claiming not a few of dad’s ear cilia. But Dad has a long daily commute, and only a good stereo can make it tolerable—hence the project.

He was so happy when he came home from Home Depot with two bucks worth of parts that would be the fix. Overeager, we should say, because drilling a part while it’s in your hand is like ironing the shirt you’re wearing.

Typical for Dad, he entered the house in ultra-low-key fashion, holding a cloth around his hand. “Can you help me for a sec?” he called to Mum, who bitched because her rice was going to boil over. It looked like a little cut, and Dad was so casual that I could see Mum was going to ask him if he wanted a Pinkie Pie or Rainbow Dash Band-Aid. But Dad had drilled his hand in three places—two minor and one deeper—THANKFULLY just shy of needing stitches, and even more thankfully well short of needing thumb reattachment.

Well. The rice boiled over and we forgot about it. (A good thing—you wouldn’t want to see what Mum does with rice.) I made myself scarce, being the most absorbent thing in the room. Mum felt like an idiot for having so little First Aid equipment in the house, and Dad…Dad just felt like an idiot. To his credit, he didn’t even flinch when Mum poured the iodine.

Cheers, Dad, for injuring yourself only moderately. I didn’t want to laugh at you, but not too long ago I read Jonathan Franzen’s hilarious The Corrections, in which borderline alcoholic Gary downs five martinis and then decides to trim the hedge. I know you have a pretty high IQ, Dad, and you’re not an alcoholic like Gary, and even though you wouldn’t let me photograph your wounds for this blog, I still love you.