Christine Gentry - The Tiniest Bouquet

 

 

So, I'm sure a lot of you think that your dads make dating worse than the intrinsic nightmare that it already is, but y' all didn't grow up in Texas, okay? My dad is a couple inches taller than I am, but probably one of the most intimidating men on the planet. He's an ex-Air Force Vietnam vet who became a mechanic, because he was much better with his hands than he was with his heart. 

 

He's allergic to feelings. So, my dad started running romantic interference very early in my life. I remember a night when I was five or six, and we were having dinner at the closeted gay music minister's house, and I was down the hall playing with his son and we were playing kiss tag, which I'm sure you can imagine is tag with kissing. 

 

As soon as my dad found out, he came to the back room, he grabbed me by my ear and drugged me out to the hallway and said, “You ain't never to play that game again.” And I said, “Why, dad?” He said, “Because kissing is where babies come from.” [audience laughter] Okay. Like, all good Texans, my dad didn't let me date until I was 16 years old. I clearly remember the day that this rule was set. I was about 13. This really cute boy at school had asked me to meet him at the mall, swoon. I had to ask my dad for permission, but he was changing the oil on the Suburban. 

 

So, I went out to find him. I had to ask his knees, because he was under the car. And so, I kicked the ground and asked him if I could go to the mall, and he didn't respond. There was just some grunting and then he shimmied out from under the car, grabbed that pan of dirty oil and started walking right up back to the house. I tottered after him, like maybe he didn't hear me. He gets to the porch where this bright cluster of daffodils had just bloomed. He locks eyes with me and pours that dirty oil all over those flowers and he says, “Absolutely not. Not till you're 16.” I was like, “Okay.” [laughs] I was crushed like imagining this boy at Spencer's with another girl. [audience laughter] 

 

So, I didn't have my first real date until junior year of high school. It was homecoming dance and I was like, “Okay, this is it. I'm going to have my first kiss tonight. We're going to get married the summer after graduation. We'll start having Christian babies. It's the way that God wants it.” [audience laughter] And of course, it had apocalyptic rained the night before this dance. And so, our crappy front yard was just a mud swamp. My dad's solution was to crisscross some two by fours between the sidewalk and the porch. And so, this poor boy had to balance beam it to our front door. And then, once he got in, it was just four walls of guns and dead shit. [audience laughter] 

 

My dad sat him down, and he put tube socks on both of his hands and said, “I don't want these coming off all night.” [audience laughter] Pulls a shotgun off the wall, opens it real casual like and asks the boy to look down the back of the barrel to see if it was clean. Needless to say, I did not get kissed that night. I was home by 09:30 and I cried myself to sleep. I was like, “I am never going to get married. That's it.” Like, “This is it.” 

 

In the 20 years since that night, I have brought literally two humans’ home to meet my father. The first one might as well not have had a name, because he was only ever referred to as noodle arms. [audience laughter] This includes all in person interactions. [audience laughter] The second one hadn't even been in our house for five minutes when my dad sat him down and handed him a grenade. [audience laughter] He had emptied the powder from the grenade, but of course, the boy did not know that. He sat down next to him, pulled the pen and said, “Got a couple questions for you.” [audience laughter] Things didn't work out with those boys. 

 

I didn't blame my dad, obviously, but he wasn't helping. So, I stopped bringing people home. It got to the point where I didn't even want to talk to my dad about who I was dating or anything personal going on in my life. My last breakup was awful. Awful. It was like one of those eviscerating ones that make you lose sleep, and weight and hope in mankind. And I called my mom, sobbing, told her about it. She said, “Do you want to talk to your dad?” I was like, “No way.” And the next day I get a call from the front office and they said, “I have a package from 1-800-Flowers.” And I said, “That's weird.” 

 

I went to get it, and it was from my dad. He had googled his way to my work address and had this adorable little bouquet of multicolored tulips sent to my school. And the card said, “Just wanted to cheer you up. Just thinking of you. Miss ya. Want to kiss ya,” [audience laughter] It was all in one run on sentence, [audience laughter] and I'm an English teacher. [audience laughter] It was the smallest, cheapest bouquet I have ever received. [audience laughter] But as far as I know, my father has never sent flowers to anyone. Not mom, not grandma, no one. And it was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. Thank you.