Everyone knows that Dads are the world's ultimate source for a good corny joke. These appropriately named "dad jokes" are something that have become extremely popular over the course of time. However, my dad takes the cake. Dad has never failed to give me a funny spin on a life lesson, so I figured the rest of the world needs to hear them too.
1. If you are going to talk crap, you're going to shovel crap.
This one is probably one of my favorites. I was in trouble for lying to my parents about something stupid. Dad then proceeded to walk me up to the barn on our farm, hand me a "pooper scooper" and looked me straight in the eyes and said, "If you are going to talk crap and lie to your mother and me, the best punishment I know to do is to have you shovel the crap that you talk." I ended up cleaning out all of one of the smaller horse pastures and several hours later, I had rethought some of my actions, and saw the wrong in them. Now, anytime I think about lying, I think about the hours spent shoveling all that manure and it makes me want to just tell the truth and face the consequences.
2. The Dropping Out of College Solution.
After a rough semester, I finally returned home from college. I was talking to Dad about how much I hated what I was doing and how I wanted to drop out and just quit. Dad then walked away and I thought the conversation was over. A few moments later, my dad called my name and told me to come over to him. On his computer screen, there was the career page for McDonald's pulled up. He then told me if I was going to drop out of college, I needed to start looking for jobs and he had already thought of where I needed to start. Needless to say, I haven't complained about wanting to drop out since that day.
3. "McLaughlin Work Camp"
One of my dad's finest creations. This punishment started when I came home with my first detention slip in the eighth grade. Dad then decided that instead of grounding me from my phone like my normal punishments, I needed some manual labor. And since detention was like a smaller scale version of prison, I needed to be treated like one and assigned a hard working labor job. I was then given a push mower and my dad pointed to the hilly fence row in front of out house with the weeds that were up to my waist and was told that this piece of land needed to be mowed before I could have my phone back, or go out with my friends. I wish I could say that I never had to mow that fence row again, but as my teenage years went on, I always got into more trouble. For a couple years, that same fence row remained neatly mowed and looked gorgeous, all because I couldn't learn to stay out of trouble.
4. "The Only Reason to Cry in Basketball is Over a Gold Ball."
When I first started playing basketball, I was a HUGE crybaby. I would cry if a girl barely ran into me because I wasn't very tough. One day, my dad had enough and told me that the only reason to ever cry in basketball was over the gold ball. (For those that don't know, the gold ball is the state champion trophy given to the winner at the end of the playoffs.) I'm pretty sure my dad only told me that so I would stop crying all the time, he never expected me to ever be put in that situation. So years went on and I started toughening up and I cried less and less. Ironically enough, my junior year, my teammates and I ended up playing for that gold ball. Unfortunately, we lost that championship game, and after it was over, Dad hugged me and noticed I had been crying, he then looked at me and nodded his head that it was okay. This lesson taught me that crying over the small stuff doesn't matter, it's the big things that do.
5. "If people make fun of you, laugh with them instead of getting upset."
Some people will take this life lesson as mean, but in my household, we all tease each other. It's just a family thing. So the biggest test of this lesson and the one that stands out the most is the time I was trying really really hard to lose the weight I had put on during college. I ran into the living room and was soo excited that I said to my dad, "Hey guess what! I've lost 10 pounds since I've started trying to lose weight." My dad then replied without batting and eye, "Turn around, I think I found it." Normally, people would get upset and mad about it, but because my dad taught me to laugh be able to laugh at myself, we both cracked up and went on with it.
Thankfully, there are so many more things that my dad taught me over the years. I'm so grateful that he's my dad and not someone else's. I love you, Dad!!
