Dads have an annoying habit of holding a special place in our hearts—even when they're totally screwing up. They can give terrible advice, embarrass us in front of our friends, and even put us in harm’s way. And yet, somehow, they still come up smelling like roses. These Redditors think their stories of foolhardy fathers should take top honors. Read on and see how your best “dad story” measures up.
1. Dad To The Rescue
A long time ago I got pretty much peer pressured into going on a double date with a guy I hated. In fact, I’d already told him I hated him on many occasions. We both worked at the local fast food joint. I was fresh out of high school and naive and felt like I had to be nice. The guy had asked me out in a way that put me on the spot too.
It was on his day off in the middle of my shift, and he showed up dressed like he was going to a wedding. He brought me a bunch of flowers and asked me out in the middle of a lunch rush. It was mortifying, and then it got worse. Everyone started chanting, “say yes, say yes”. I agreed and ran out on my shift crying, and feeling like I couldn't back out.
It was painfully obvious during—and after—the date that I was not interested. He kept calling me, texting me—even leaving me angry and weird voicemails. He even drove by my house a few times. My parents, noticing my change in mood, asked me what was up, and I told them about the guy and played them the voicemails.
My dad then calmly asked me when we next had the same shift and I told him. My dad came to the restaurant after his factory shift. My dad is a big dude and looks scary, especially covered in grease and wearing a uniform. My dad burst into the restaurant, gave me a hug, and asked me where the guy was. Everyone is frozen in place, and slack-jawed.
Anyone that knew my dad knew him as a goofy, kind guy, so they were just in awe of this whirlwind that had burst in the door. I pointed to the kitchen and the dopey guy looked like he was going to wet his pants. My dad pointed right at him and said: “Leave my daughter alone or I will go back to lockup". He then told me he loved me, and that mom was cooking dinner.
He waved to some of my friends he knew and walked out the door like nothing ever happened. That guy went on break and never came back—and he never bothered me again.
2. Family Flees Fuzz
I was with my family and we were driving down the highway. It was my sister’s birthday and her cake was in the backseat with us. Suddenly we hear a siren and there’s a squad car behind us with its light flashing. Instead of pulling over, for some reason, my dad starts speeding up. My sister's birthday cake was tumbling around in the backseat.
My mom and dad were arguing, so it somehow led to a high-speed chase. At the time that area was just bushes and cacti, so we went through there and eventually got away. I remember looking back, and just seeing a cloud of dirt—and behind that, a bunch of cop lights flashing. I then looked down and saw the cake all messed up, and still inside the transparent thing they come in.
This makes my dad sound crazy—and maybe he is a bit crazy—but he never treated us bad or anything, I don't even remember him raising his voice at us even once. But yeah, it's a cool memory.
3. I’m Usher, Not An Usher
My dad used to fly a lot for his job. It wasn’t a fancy job so he always flew coach. One time, my dad was at the airport, and he ended up getting upgraded to first class. He was super happy and took his seat in a place he’d only dreamed of sitting in. Of course, he was the type to talk to strangers, and it didn’t matter if he was in first-class or not.
He ended up talking with this guy seated near him for the majority of the flight. Turns out that guy was Usher.
4. Sons Sees The Light
I didn't see my dad much, he lived 80 miles away and was getting his life together. I tried to see him once a month for a weekend. I would bring my homework and spend a few days with him. One day, I'm sitting at his computer while he's watching TV in the same room, and he turns to me and asks if I want to "see something". Nothing could have prepared me for what came next.
He retrieves a cardboard box from his closet and sets it on my lap, and I open it. Staring at me in the face is a 15" giant girthy purple phallus. I look up to him with a confused expression, and he laughs out with a Cheshire grin: "I'm going to make a lamp out of it". We laugh about it for the rest of the weekend, making dumb jokes, it was fun.
Soon, I leave for home, and I forget about the jokes and everything I return a month later and open the door to his apartment to see that all of the walls had a faint purple hue. Looking down, I see this giant glowing purple weenie suction cupped to my dad's coffee table. I drop my bags slack-jawed as he steps up behind me and claps twice, and the lamp turns off. My dad made a weenie lamp and then gave it the clap. Legendary.
5. This Show Is Rated R
One day at 8 am, there was a knock at our front door. It seemed like a very early hour for someone to be knocking. Anyway, for some unknown reason, my dad answered the door in only his underwear. It was a salesman, who was obviously weirded out. After the salesmen left, my mom was mortified and asked my dad why he did that.
My dad said, "If these people don't want a show, they shouldn't come for the matinee".
6. Freezer Full Of Squirrels
One time, when my dad was in college, he almost caused a biohazard shutdown across campus. In central Arkansas, he was able to hunt a ton of squirrels. He did so, and put the frozen bodies in his dorm freezer: so that he could have a large cooking party once he was done. A few days after the freezer got full, he went home as part of Thanksgiving vacation.
Little did my father know, the school shuts power off in the dorms when the students leave. So, what happens to 20 squirrel carcasses after they defrost and stew in their own decaying muck? When he got back, he noticed a smell outside of his dorm. It was so foul he could taste it. In a moment of instant clarity, he knew why.
Very few people were there yet, and he was one of the first to return. As he climbed up the steps to his third-story room, the smell got so bad he had to stop and puke twice. Once on his floor, he ran to get to his room so that he couldn't stop and think about what he was doing. His actual room had a literal gas cloud of rot.
Working on instinct more than thought, my dad ran in and grabbed the squirrel carcass/mush bag from his freezer. He opened his third-story window and chucked it out—onto the sidewalk. My dad could see the bag tumble down through the air and split immediately on impact. There was a crowd of people, including the local firefighters, to see what was causing the mess.
Luckily his bag went wide by about twenty feet, but as soon as it burst people ran. At the dean's office, my father was asked, “College ain't the right fit for you, is it son?” Dad agreed, and left that college without any kind of backlash. Then he finished his degree elsewhere.
7. Mayday Hilarity
One time my dad took my brother's walkie-talkie and had us—and about 10 kids in the neighborhood—convinced that we had picked up a signal from a plane that was crashing towards the Earth. We were running up and down the streets for an hour with our eyes on the sky listening as the "pilot" tried to reach someone for help.
Dad's windows were open so we eventually caught on to the heinous laughter echoing between the houses after every mayday.
8. Where’d Your Fingers Go?
About five years ago, my dad accidentally cut three of his fingers off in our garage with a saw. Horrible I know. My niece was only like five months old at the time, so growing up, she's never seen my dad with all of his digits. Anyway, when she was about two and a half, she noticed that one of his hands was different.
So, one day she asked him "Grandpoppy, what happened to your fingers?" My dad looked down at his hand all shocked and said "Someone snatched them!!" Her face had the look of pure horror, and she screamed, "Who snatched your fingers?" My dad looked at my mom and said, "Granmommy did!" My niece ran up to my mom and started beating on her legs.
She was searching her jeans pockets to give back her Grandpoppy's fingers. My dad, man.
9. Better Safe Than Sorry
When I was walking out to the car to leave for college, my dad yelled "HEY" from the front door. I turned around and he took this huge box of magnum-sized condoms and threw them at me as hard as he could. The box hit me in the nose as he yelled, "CARE PACKAGE" and then ran inside laughing. That's very flattering dad, but I don't have much use for them.
10. Fire In His Eyes
When I was a kid, my Dad was a truck driver and a blue collar worker—a very honest man. At the time we lived in a kind of rough trailer park. One day, one of our neighbors comes out and starts saying to beat me and my best friend if we mess with his mailbox again. We hadn’t messed with his mailbox—he was making this all up.
My Dad and my best friend’s Dad, who was a former Marine Captain, were outside at the time. As my best friend’s Dad would later tell it, my Dad had the biggest fire in his eyes and my best friend’s Dad had to keep him down to stop him from jumping the chain link fence and beating the guy up. I remember the guy backpedaling and my Dad telling him, "That's right keep walking buddy".
11. Sugar Daddy
One time, my dad was sitting on the couch in our living room. Mom brought out a bag of sugar and asked him to open it. He opened it like it was a bag of Doritos, and I mean, SUGAR. WAS. EVERYWHERE. He was only wearing his shorts, so there was sugar in just about every square inch of his visible hair as well as all over our couch and carpet.
It took him four showers in a row to get it all off.
12. Spoiled Safari
I am a Bengali, and like all good Bengalis, we went to see tigers in north Bengal. Spoiler alert: there were no tigers. After one pretty disappointing day of missing two elephant herds and seeing no wild cats, much less a tiger, we stopped at a dried-up river bed. We were really tired, the sun was setting, the peacocks were screaming, the usual. Suddenly, we hear a growl.
The monkeys are going nuts, which is the tell-tale sign of a tiger nearby. The guide tells us to rush to our jeeps. We oblige, but just before boarding, I see my dad smirking, HARD. After an hour of waiting, we see no tigers and head home. The next morning, while everyone is freaking out over the growl, dad pulls me aside to tell me something.
He says that the growl was actually a burp. His burp. So I can proudly say that once my dad burped so hard the jungle thought it was a tiger.
13. Fruit Out Of The Blue
So we were having a family dinner over the summer and my sister had been at a BBQ the day before and the host gave her a big bowl of fruit salad to take home. So, we're sitting there having dinner and my dad is staring at the fruit salad with this weird look on his face. Then he says while holding up a blueberry, "What are these little blue things?"
We were like, "how the heck do you not know what a blueberry is?" Then we realized my mom hates blueberries so much that dude hasn't seen a blueberry in 45 years. Turns out he forgot they existed.
14. Crash Landing
My old man used to paraglide—amongst other adrenaline-fuelled things. One weekend my mom had taken me and my sister away to my gran's for the weekend. I think I was about 11. Dad goes paragliding alone from the hill near our house, but as he is coming into land, the canopy folds in on itself, and he plummets 30 meters to the ground.
He lands in a field. He messed up and knew it. He is in pain but gets himself up, walks the 20 minutes home—carrying the whole paraglider in a backpack—gets a lift from a neighbor to get his car from the top of the hill. He then drives himself the 30-minute drive to hospital. The doctors there assess him and send him home with painkillers.
He gets home and is in a lot of pain. He calls my mom, who is a senior nurse at that hospital. She tells him to lie very still and not move until she gets there. Two hours later we get home and she takes him back to the hospital and screams blue idiots at the doctors for not x-raying him. Turns out he had two crushed vertebrae and could have been paralyzed.
He spent six months in a cast at home that we nicknamed his "turtle shell" and he never flew again. We could have sued the hospital but didn't.
15. A Problematic Slip-Up
First, you have to understand that my dad is the best, always wants to goof around and he’d never be prejudiced or anything like that. In 1998, my dad took me to my college orientation. I grew up in an urban setting and wanted to mix it up. To do this, I decided to attend an undergrad school in a very rural area. This meant there wasn’t a lot of diversity.
Back when I was growing up we had this jeep that we called "Little Blackie". The reason was obvious. It was because it was little and black. A running joke was that any time any of us in the family saw a similar-looking jeep, one of us would yell: "Hey! Look! It's little blackie!" I bet you can see where this story is going.
We were walking around campus and sure enough, there was a jeep parked within sight. My dad starts yelling...Hey! Look! Little Blackie!! LITTLE BLACKIE!!! Of course, the only African American kid on campus was walking right in front of us. My dad was oblivious and kept right on yelling. The poor kid looked at me in disgust, and I was so very mortified—I wanted to disappear.
I ended up becoming really good friends with him later in my freshman year and after I explained the whole story he laughed super hard. Thank goodness. I still cringe thinking about it though.
16. Nature Too Well Preserved
One time my dad made me drive three hours from home to visit a nature preserve. He then began taking pictures of the birds there. Just one problem: all the birds were plastic. It turns out the flocks had stopped migrating back to the preserve, so they put up plastic birds for tourists. The funniest part was how long it took him to believe me when I told him they were plastic.
17. Cool About The Pool
One time I had a party at my house that my parents didn’t know about. There were some girls dancing together on the pool table, and one of them had Cheeto dust on her fingers. Of course, it got on the pool table. I tried to clean it, but I couldn't get all of it before my parents got home. When my dad saw the pool table, he called me downstairs.
He asked me about the marks on the table, and I couldn't think of a lie. So, I just told him the truth. After I finished telling him about the girls dancing on the pool table, he stared at me for a couple of seconds and then just said: "Nice".
18. As Green As The Hulk
One time, we went to Universal Studios and my dad took me on The Hulk roller coaster even though he knew it would make him sick. I was afraid of coasters at that point, and he sacrificed himself because he knew I would never go on the ride without him. When we got off his face was completely colorless and his stomach was done working correctly for the rest of the day, but I loved the roller coaster.
19. Father Flares Fire
The state of Michigan doesn't allow the good fireworks, but Indiana does. So, every June my dad would drive across the border and pick up a trunk full. One rather inebriated 4th of July, he reaches in the back, pulls out what appears to be an oversized confetti popper, and aims it at the tree before pulling the trigger. This was a mistake.
It was not a party popper. It was his emergency flare. It got stuck towards the top of the tree and turned the whole neighborhood orange. The authorities in my hometown wouldn't really turn out for reports of the good fireworks—unless someone lit a car on fire or something. But they will definitely turn out en masse for an emergency flare.
Dad went from boozed to drill sergeant in about two seconds. Somehow, we managed to shove the entire stock of the good fireworks into the garage, and used snow shovels to push the husks of the used ones into the parking lot across the street. When the three officers in squad cars and the Fire/Rescue truck showed up, us kids were playing with sparklers and Dad was standing with his hands on his hips, scowling at the tree.
“Why yes, officer, some punks were across the street, lighting off roman candles and huge fountains,” my dad said, “and they ran when one of their tricks got stuck in the tree. He went on to say that he was just about to call when they ran off. “Don't they know that roman candles are dangerous? They coulda hit one of the kids!”
20. Mind Blown
One time, as a present for getting accepted into an 'exclusive' high school, my dad got me a cool gift. I am a huge plane nerd, so when he told me we were going to get to check out a Fifi on the ground, I was excited. You see Fifi, at that time anyway, was the only flying B-29 in the world. Seeing it would be the thrill of a lifetime.
So, as we were driving to the airfield, we got a call from the people running the event. They told us they were waiting for us, so we should hurry up so they can 'get us ready to fly.' My dad had actually arranged it so I’d be flying in this amazing aircraft—not just looking at it on the ground. I promptly lost my mind and had one of the best days of my life. Thanks, dad.
21. Soda Makes Dad Sprint
We were having a bonfire one night and one of my brother’s friends put a Mountain Dew can near the fire so it heated up slowly. When it exploded it sounded like a mortar went off. It sent embers 40 feet into the air and 25 feet around. After gaining our senses, we could see our dad’s silhouette sprinting inside the house, because he thought we were getting shot at.
I've never seen him move that fast. To clarify, he was already in the house.
22. Dad Misses Birth
This is a dark story, but I still want to tell it because it really means something to me. After my mom and dad got married, my dad would often come home late at night and was always very inebriated. Almost every night he wouldn’t be able to function. My dad never thought twice about his problem with booze until my mother went into labor for the first time.
My dad was too tipsy, so my mom had to call our next-door neighbor to drive her to the hospital. My dad was way over the limit to drive his own wife to the hospital to give birth to his own son. But something good actually came out of it...Since that moment, he has never touched another drink.
23. Defending My Honor
I was maybe seven or eight years old and walking home from my friend's house after enjoying a snow day sledding around in her hilly backyard. Apparently, the neighborhood boys around my age (I am a girl) spent their day building a fort structure. I remember stopping briefly to admire it, but there were no kids in sight. Oh well, I turn and continue walking home.
Suddenly about five boys popped out the back of the fort and pummelled me with snowballs. I guess they also spent the day stocking up on snowballs and awaiting the perfect passing victim. They really messed me up with those snowballs. I am a stupidly petite adult and thusly, was a really tiny little girl and these dumb boys really didn't understand that they were going too far.
I was down on the ground and still getting nailed snowball after snowball mostly in the head/face area. After the initial shock, I made efforts to block the shots with my snow saucer and finally got on my feet to run. They followed me until they ran out of projectiles and retreated. Relieved, I stop running and was just SO upset.
I was barely even walking. Just dragging my feet, crying, trying to wipe my face with big stupid bulky gloves. Then my dad's car pulls up next to me. He had gone to work that day, despite the snow, and had just pulled into the neighborhood. "Hey kid, need a ride?" So yeah, I get in the car and he sees I've been crying.
At first, I wouldn't tell him why I was upset, because I was embarrassed and didn't want to be a tattle tale. Once we pulled into the driveway though, he wouldn't let me out of the car until I told him what was up. After my explanation, he told me to go inside and get washed up for dinner, that he'll be inside in a few minutes.
Ok, so “time warp” to 10 years later. I was planning a big high school graduation cookout at our house, and I was inviting all the kids from the neighborhood. A couple of those boys from the snowball incident told me they didn't really feel comfortable hanging out at my parent's house, to which I'm like: “what are you talking about?”
These boys then lay out this tale: On that fateful Snow D-Day, my dad drove back to the kid's fort and screamed at all of them to come out or he would call their parents. Once all the boys were lined up, Dad—still in his suit and tie—demolished their fort. Kicked it all down. Then from the rubble, he made big man-sized snowballs and made sure each kid got a violent face full of their precious fort.
24. Dad Vader
I was in elementary school when the new Star Wars movies came out. My dad’s company had booked the whole theater to see it on opening day, so we got to leave school early to see it. My dad dressed up as Darth Vader—in full costume with helmet and lightsaber—and snuck into our classroom. He came up behind one of my classmates: "Kevin, I am your father".
At the time I didn't think it was possible to be more embarrassed, but now I think that was pretty hilarious of my dad to do that.
Piqsels
25. Home Invasion
One time my dad almost slit my throat because he thought I was a burglar. I had snuck downstairs for some reason. I was in the kitchen and heard him coming in, so I hid behind the kitchen counter. I heard my dad opening drawers and things. Next thing I know he had leaned over the counter and grabbed my head: he had a kitchen blade to my throat.
A split second later he realized it was me and dropped me. It was then I got yelled at because he had heard me breathing. He thought I was a home intruder, and I almost got in a world of pain. He was shaking from adrenaline. As a dad now myself, I can imagine the state of mind he was in.
26. Fingers On Ice
My dad was a quality guy and very safe in all things in his professional life. However, when not working, he liked to drink hard—and I mean hard. It was the weekend, so he was pounding back some brewskis, while building something like a fence or deck or maybe an airplane. The dude was a handyman, mechanic extraordinaire.
So he was cutting wood in the garage for the coffin he was building. He had one of those spinning saws. I don't know what they are called. He realized when I was quite young that I was too lazy to ever make anything myself, so he didn't waste his breath telling me what the tools were called. He just kept his focus on the rocking chair he was building.
Anyways, by that time he's totally wrecked. He's cutting a two-by-four for the dog house roof and not completely paying attention. I was sitting on the porch actually playing my Gameboy, and I could hear the saw and him building his replica train station but he told me to stay out of the garage cause it could be dangerous. Good call.
So I'm sitting there and I don't hear screaming like you'd expect when a dude building a loft isn't looking and cuts off the tip of his finger. Instead, I just heard the whirring of the saw and then a weird noise which turns out was his bone being cut. The saw shuts off and what I hear is this very matter of fact, "Well that's just what I need on my day off—and I was nearly done building that dock".
Then he walks out of the garage and sees me, and he's holding the tip of his finger in the hand he just cut —between the thumb and pinky. And his middle finger is held up and he's holding his other hand over the top of it, and pressing down like he's calling a timeout. He looks me in the eyes and says, "Can you get the door for me, then grab me some ice to put my bloody fingertip in".
I ran and got him ice. Meanwhile, he grabbed his wallet and keys, and when he came and found me in the kitchen he's got his mangled hand pressed into his hip like he's striking some super model pose. He's just shaking his head, visibly annoyed. Then I held the bag of ice open, he dropped the fingertip in it; then asked me to seal the bag. I did and gave it to him, and he put it in his pocket.
Then he looks at me like he's working out the best next action and finally says, "Alright don't tell your mom about this, or she'll just freak out for nothing. I'm gonna go to the hospital and get this stupid thing sewed back on. If I'm not home by dinner, just tell your mom I went to the hardware store. Oh and don't go in the garage. It looks like a horror movie in there".
Then he drove himself to the hospital and sure enough from that day forward his middle finger was shorter than the other fingers beside it. But I still am not 100% sure my mom knows.
27. Dad VS. Armadillo
My dad is crazy about having a nice lawn. One time, there was an armadillo that was basically ruining our backyard, so he complained about it every time he went outside. After a week or so of armadillo infestation, I'm awakened at 4:30 am hearing shots fired. Then I heard some of the most magnificent swearing I've ever heard.
I ran downstairs to see what's going on, and joined my mom at the window where we watched my dad attempt to take out the armadillo. What he was unaware of was the apparent speed and the agility of the armadillo. The thing was running, dodging, and jumping into the air to avoid the bullets. My dad was chasing after it, yelling, and screaming his head off.
He eventually hit it, the armadillo was vanquished, the yard was saved, and I had the dirtiest vocabulary in my third-grade class.
28. Superhuman Strength
When I was a child—around eight or nine years old—my parents and I were vacationing in Las Vegas, staying at the MGM Grand. In the downstairs of the hotel were shops and restaurants, and I had to use the bathroom. I went into the stall, did my business, and then, to my childlike horror, I discovered the door was stuck.
The door was the type that was close to the floor, and there wasn't room to crawl out. I yelled for my Dad, who was using the urinal. He walked over, grabbed the door, and literally yanked it off its hinges like it was nothing. He set the door against the wall, and we just walked out. I'll never forget it.
29. Blender Boy
One time, just before I graduated high school, my dad sat me down to have a serious conversation about socializing in college. It turned into him telling me a bunch of crazy party stories and suggesting that the best way to make friends is to own a blender with a 100 ft extension cord. This was because his friends would go outside to play basketball or whatever, and he'd bring his blender out with them and make margaritas".
We met so many girls because of that blender, people like the guy with the blender". My dad is super serious and straight-laced most of the time, so this totally caught me off guard.
30. A Study In Pink
When I was younger, I was a pretty high level swimmer, so my mom would take me to events all over the country. That meant leaving my dad and my 10-year-old brother home. One time, we went up north for a few days just after we'd had our house insulated. I don't know if you've ever seen what they do, but they essentially drill holes in your house and squirt insulation inside, it leaves loads of cream-colored spots all over the walls.
I remember just before we left for the event, my mom looked at my dad and said, "Make sure you paint the house". To which he replied, "Of course dear". Fast forward three days, and we're rolling up the drive at about midnight. My mother looks horrified. The house has now been floodlit. Multiple lights are now pointing at our white house, which now has massive pink spots.
My dad and my 10-year-old brother were standing on ladders covered in pink paint and looking very happy with themselves. Of course, after that, she was more specific with her instructions. She was not very pleased.
31. The Facts Of Life
One time, when I was about 10, my dad called me into his room. He and my mom were there, totally undressed, standing around and laying their clothes down ready to get dressed. They acted like the situation was completely normal and asked me about some random thing. I eventually blocked this memory out and thought it to be a dream. But that wasn't all.
10 years later, they told me that was their way of showing me what a body looked like because I was getting close to "that age".
32. Dad Crashes Frat Party
One time my dad went to fathers weekend for my sorority. My dad likes to believe he's 21 despite being 50 with four kids. At fathers weekend, he got bored at our father's event and decided to recruit my roommate’s dad to crash a frat party. Well, he succeeded and proceeded to walk down our street until he found a party to crash.
He and his new friend knocked on the door and asked to see the place. Once inside, they made fun of the lack of good booze the party had and proceeded to buy a keg of "the good stuff" for the party. He then starts to make friends with the guys at the party and starts taking shots with them. Fast forward an hour, and now my dad has made friends with the frat dudes.
He’s showing these guys the music he used to listen to when he was in college. They ask him to go on the stage and play it on the speakers. Well, he proceeds to play some songs, and jumps on the table, and starts to dance on the table. The table then breaks and my dad is carried off as the coolest dad ever. It's been a year, and I am still hearing people talk about him.
33. Girl On Fire
One time my dad set someone on fire. He was standing with a group of people having a smoke, and this girl walked up and asked for a light. My dad said sure and she leaned in as he lit the lighter. The girl’s hair went right into the flame causing her hair to catch fire. Apparently, someone had a little too much hair spray.
She was fine and didn't suffer any serious injuries. Dad still tells people the story to this day.
34. Sweaty Swipe
One day, my brother’s car got towed. My dad went with us to the tower to pick it up. As per usual, the guy behind the counter treated us terribly, so when he turned around to get our paperwork, my dad took the cash he was using to release our car. He stuck the cash down his pants and wiped his balls with it. Dad then handed it to the idiot behind the counter when he turned around.
By the way, we live in Houston Texas. It gets purdy sweaty down there.
35. Big Foot On The Loose
One time, my friends and I were having a camp out near the pond on my parents' property. My dad had this Bigfoot costume that he saves specifically for times like these, and I should have known better. Well it was just getting dark, and we were sitting around the campfire talking and we started hearing branches cracking in the bushes near our camping spot.
All of a sudden, my dad in his Bigfoot costume comes flying out of the brush. Needless to say, we all almost peed our pants.
36. Purse Snatched
My parents have been divorced since I was two. Even though I still saw my mom on weekends, I grew up as "a daddy's girl". My dad was always the one to really take care of me, spoil me, etc. Anyway, when I was younger, I had always wanted to go to Disney World but it was always too expensive. Finally, at 13, my dad decided, since my grandpa moved to Florida, we could go visit him and go to Disney World.
My dad has always been a little "Danny Tanner-ish" and wore a fanny pack—I was more than a little embarrassed. One of the days when we were in Florida, we decided to just go to the ocean with my great aunt. My aunt and I started feeding the seagulls and my dad was just chilling in one of those low to the ground beach chairs with his fanny pack lying next to it.
All of the sudden, the tide comes up and sweeps up my dad's fanny pack. My aunt and I are still feeding seagulls, and then out of nowhere on a packed beach—my dad starts yelling: ”My purse. My purse!!!” He then starts running and falling into the ocean. My aunt and I just started dying laughing. My dad did retrieve "his purse'" and he told us not to say anything to grandpa.
As soon as I got back to grandpa's house I said: “OMG grandpa! Guess what dad just did!”
37. Don’t Sass Santa
Back when my brothers and sisters were young enough to believe in Santa Claus, my dad did something we’ll never forget. He waited till my three siblings and I had gone to bed on Christmas Eve, then he shouted: "I don't care who you are, fat man, get that sled off my roof". We were all up and telling Dad not to yell at Santa.
38. Bloody Poker Game
Me and a few of my friends used to hold this poker night each week, which my dad used to play too. My dad got particularly inebriated one night and was foolishly getting on his bicycle to go home. It was icy outside, and we spent around 15 minutes trying to persuade him to get a lift from one of my friends. He refused.
Ten minutes later there's a knock at the front door, and when I opened it—I couldn't believe my eyes. There’s my dad with blood dripping down and covering half his face. All he said was: "I fell over". He then came in and fell over again. Next, he washed his face and went to sleep on the couch.
39. He Hit The Showers…And The Toilet Too
Our family had a barbecue out by the lake, and the adults decided to start a game of volleyball. My dad, of course, decided to play and, as he always does, got way into the game. Somebody served the ball way past the boundaries and my dad, being the competitive man he is, still runs for the ball. He runs for it, then tries to jump for it sideways.
Somehow my dad flew into the men's room nearby, and fell right into the closed stall. He even left a huge dent in the door. So dad comes running out of there immediately—with the ball of course. Moments later some guy comes out of the men's room looking super confused. At this point, everyone is dying of laughter. That story comes up quite often when the family gets together.
40. Brain Compensation
My dad had a habit of putting off things he really didn’t like to do. He once put off going to the optometrist for three years. When he finally went, it turned out his right eye was in charge of looking at things far away and his left eye only looked at things that were up close. Sometime during those three years, he’d become farsighted and his brain compensated.
41. Lock Up Dad Gets An Eyeful
My dad worked at a jailhouse near downtown, and he loved his job. To quote my old man: "If I won the lottery I'd work there for free". He’s a very tall, muscular man that looks pretty intimidating. So this man is pretty much summed up as a guy who looks like he should be behind the bars as opposed to closing the bars. He is ecstatic, like a child in a candy shop in regards to prisons.
Well, it was 1 am, he did the night shift, and I heard the garage open and close. Then I heard him running up the stairs. I'm worried. Did somebody die? My dad then lunged at my door, and was suddenly right in my face and screaming: “Guess what I saw at work? I saw two guys doing it in a bunk!” Then, like a rising star; the door slammed, the light went off, and the house was silent.
Well, that moment my dad and I shared is nestled in my mind. I could get an award, I could get married, I could have a very large and loving family of my own. But that moment, that one moment just got crammed into my top 10 memories. When I’m old and at the end of my life, I will think about that night and I will ponder.
What compelled my father to wake his 13-year-old son at 1 am to tell him that.
42. Juice Chuggers
One time my dad took me over to my uncle's house—we had no idea why we were going over there. My dad made my twin and I chug orange juice as a contest. We thought it was funny. It turns out, we were chugging it so my uncle could pour booze in the jug, and get tipsy before my dad drove him to rehab. So.....that was fun.
43. Taking On The Church
When I was born, my parents weren’t married. My father was Catholic and wanted me baptized at his church. Mom wasn’t religious and didn’t care how or where I was baptized. Okay, so my father headed down to his local church. This had been his church since his birth. Actually, my family on his side built the church over 200 years ago.
The priest from my dad’s childhood had recently retired, but dad didn't think there'd be a problem. The new priest, however, was a real jerk. He literally told my father that he refused to baptize me, because there was no point given that, as a child with unmarried parents, I wasn’t going to heaven no matter what. So dad did the reasonable thing.
He told the priest to get lost and that, "There is a special place in Hades for people who try to keep children from God". That was a part of this rant. Then he hatched a plan. Now, my father was very devout. He was an altar boy until he was 17. So, he reread the bible—at least the books that he thought the thing he was looking for was in—and then he found it.
So, technically, Christian rule says that any baptized person can baptize another. You do not have to be a priest or pastor or whatever. So, that's exactly what he did. My father baptized me. He made holy water out of tap water and did it in the kitchen sink while mom was getting my sisters from school. She came home and he told her that the baptism thing was solved.
Mom asked him if he’d found another church to perform the baptism. He told her that he didn’t ask another church. He then showed her the passage and then told her that he had already baptized me in the sink. I miss him.
44. Dad Gets Bitten
My dad was out camping once, and he came across a rattlesnake. Sure enough, the thing bit him on the arm. He went and saw the doctor, and she told him what he had to do to speed up his recovery. She said he would have to constantly move his hand to keep the blood flow going. The doctor said that if he couldn't keep moving it, they would have to amputate it.
And that's how my dad learned to play guitar.
45. Pool Deck Walrus
One very hot sunny day my dad, who is on the short side and chubby, took us to the pool to cool off. When we got there, for some strange reason he pretended to be a walrus laying on the side of the pool. He propped up on his arms while yelling, "I'm a walrus!" and bellowing loudly. He then flop-barrel rolled into the water. I was 15 and horrified.
46. Like Taking Candy From A Baby
One time on Hallowe’en, trick or treaters came to the door and my Dad answered. One of them says, “Trick or treat!” To which my Dad replies, “Treat please!” The kids all look at each other very confused. One of them reluctantly hands him a Kitkat. Dad takes it, thanks them, and shuts the door. We didn't get any more trick or treaters that year.
47. Saw Story Stays Secret
One time, my older brother and I were helping my dear old dad cut down some trees in the backyard, and the chainsaw kind of stuck. My dad yanked it out a little too hard and to our horror, the chainsaw hit my brother's leg. We all froze and looked at his jeans, which had 4 or so perfectly spaced holes—but there was no blood.
He had managed to hit my brother's pants but didn't get in far enough to hit flesh. The next words out of his mouth were pretty obvious: "Don't tell your mother!" And we still haven't over 20 years later.
Sources: Reddit
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