At least her bowel was in her body, Dad

No one’s ever tried to fix me up with anyone. Sure, it would be awkward now that I’m married (and pregnant), but it saddens me that no one cared enough after meeting a handsome beefcake to stop and think, “Hey, Mrs. Mullet might like to jump on this.”

And they call themselves my friends.

Me, on the other hand, I am always thinking of who should be paired. Since my basis for linking people tends to be alcohol-induced and completely unreliable, I never act on my matchy-matchyness. Except when it’s my father.

Mwahahahaha.

My dad’s a great guy. He’s in his 60s and still has all his hair. He goes to the gym. He reads. He’s hopelessly old fashioned. He’s a catch! But lately his chick radar is honed in on his National Geographics and the History Channel instead of on the ladies, and my family, being the pushy busy bodies we are, have pounced on him.

Even his own mother—his 94-year-old mother—won’t leave him alone.

For months my grandmother told him about her nurse, Barbara. How nice she was. How attentive. How lovely her fiery red hair was. And so on. After being hammered nonstop with Barbarisms, my father finally relented and went on a date with Babs.

The date consisted of watching a movie at her house. After she hit play, Babs said she was going to slip into something more comfortable. She changed into a one piece spandex leotard. If you’re J.Lo, this is a good thing. If you’re an out-of-shape 60-year-old with spiked magenta hair and a visible, distended bowel, this is not.

He could see her bowel.

Halfway through the movie, she tried to put the moves on my father. He recoiled. Just as he was about to make an exit, someone knocked on the door. It was the FBI. They believed her son was a big-time drug dealer; they wanted his laptop.

As my father sat on the couch and Babs wept in the hallway, the FBI ransacked her son’s room. (Isn’t my dad a great guy? He actually stayed through the ransacking.)

There was no second date and obviously, my father’s a little gun-shy now when people mention the word “blind date.”

But.

When Chuck and I listed our house with a gray-haired realtor named Cheryl who was a) in her 60s and b) not sporting a wedding ring, I couldn’t help but think of the possibilities. She was sweet and cultured and best of all she offered to help me weed my front walkway. Who does that?

I formulated the perfect plan: While Cheryl helped me weed, Chuck would call my father and beg him to bring over his belt sander.



My father, being the Tool Time fool he is, would agree.

Did it work? Well, kind of.

Twenty minutes after Chuck called my dad he did come over. Instead of his sporty little Camry, though, he was driving his buddy’s rusted van to help with his move. You know, the kind of van you envision when you hear the words “child molester.”



And instead of his typically neat attire, he was wearing an inside-out shirt with paint splatters, ripped shorts and sneakers (yep, moving). Even worse, he smelled like he had spent the better part of the morning rolling around with sweaty farm animals.

“Voila, Cheryl! Your chariot awaits.”

I was still hopeful. Even though he appeared to be a deadbeat molester-type who didn’t own clean socks or soap, love can be blind, right?

Wrong. Despite congenial conversation whilst weeding (isn’t he a great guy? He actually helped weed)



Cheryl made a mad dash for her car as soon as the last weed had been plucked. I think she was on to us. As for my dad, he told us to call Home Depot the next time we need a power tool. Then he peeled out in his smokin' van.

These 60-somethings are one pissy, ungrateful lot, I tell ya.

What about you? Do you match-make in a one piece spandex leotard or have you been match-made?