Wine Trumps Reason

My parents are voting for Donald Trump because he says things other candidates are too scared to say.

Also, my dad slapped my butt and my mom said it's ok because he had a glass of wine.

My Dad is Borat

My boyfriend and I were at my parents house and I had been doing some studying. My dad and boyfriend are talking, and my dad asks him about my studies, "Do you keep her in a cage so she studies?" to which my boyfriend replies, "Yes, and I only feed her if she gets an answer right!" My dad was thrilled!

My dad AND boyfriend are Borat.

Borat Discusses His Brother Bilo (Pardon the terrible video quality).

You Give Them An Inch...

I was emailing my dad about our Verizon bill, and in the last email I sent, I said "I love you." To which he replies:

I love you too.
How we can measure the love?
Just joking.

Gorges

I went to visit my parents for dinner and my dad sent me an email the next day, saying "Thank you for coming yesterday, we enjoy it. You was so beautiful and gorges like a girl with style." But in all honesty, it was sweet and made me happy.

Threats are no Joke

A co-worker was really aggravating my dad and wouldn't leave his office. My dad said to him, "If you don't leave, I will put something heavy on your head!"

Kings and Queens

My dad was telling my boyfriend about royalty in Russia.

Dad: She was the Emperator.
Boyfriend: What?
Dad: She was the King of Russia.

MLK

This is another really horrible, horrible racist story. You have been warned.

I remember I was in high school and I wasn't going to school because it was Martin Luther King Day. My dad didn't know and asked me why I wasn't getting ready for school so I told him. To which he responds, "Oh, if more black people died, you would have more days off!"

Horrible.

Chicken in a Pot

Apologies for the wall of text.

One rainy day my parents and I decided to go to a deli for dinner. Apparently all the Jews in our area had decided the same thing because it was packed. We gave the hostess our name and sat by the door to wait. We were looking over the menu hungrily when a man came in with his service dog. At first I didn't see the dog and when it started sniffing the menu I was holding, it startled me. My mom in Russian: "Disgusting! People bringing their dogs into a restaurant!" Good thing that at least she said it in Russian. I explained to her that it was a service dog and she settled down. We finally got seated and it was obvious that the restaurant was under-staffed. When we didn't get pickles within the first 3 minutes of sitting down, my dad angrily called the poor waitress over and demanded, "Where are our pickles?!" The waitress brought the pickles but neither I nor my mom wanted any. Dad: "Then why did I get pickles?!" We were starving by this point, so we ordered an appetizer and then my dad and I ordered this thing called Chicken in a Pot. I remember it costing about $14 and the description said something about white meat chicken in a potato stew with chicken noodle soup. This didn't seem like an insane price or an outrageous description, so we each ordered one. The waitress hesitated, "Are you sure...?" Dad and I confidently nodded. Apparently, Chicken in a Pot consists of a WHOLE CHICKEN in a pot with about 4 potatoes, AND a giant bowl of chicken noodle soup. The waitress couldn't even put all our food on our table, so we were spilling over onto the adjacent table. This caught the attention of everyone in our dining area, and one old Jewish woman yelled out "Send it to Haiti!" (This was pretty soon after the 2010 Haiti earthquake). Dad and I tried our best to eat as much as we could but we didn't even get through half of it. We asked for to-go containers, but the restaurant didn't have ones big enough. We had to rip apart the chicken, and dole our food out into quart sized containers. We had about 2 plastic bags full of to-go containers. My mom and I could barely stop laughing the whole time. It was a thoroughly embarrassing but extremely hilarious evening.

Americans are Stupid

Happy 1 year blogoversary to me! Happy birthday, Adolf Hitler! Happy National Smoke Out Day!

I was telling my parents about a really stupid thing one of my now ex-coworkers did.

Dad: It's because she's American.
Me: Maybe it's just because she's stupid?
Dad: No, all Americans are stupid.

Are You Jewish?

I was talking to my parents about the new guy I'm dating, who happens not to be Jewish. We had been dating for several months and he even met my parents a couple times, so I thought it was completely ridiculous when my mom asked me if he knows that I'm Jewish, the implication being that if he knew, he probably wouldn't be dating me. Of course he does! Why would I date someone for MONTHS and let him meet my parents, and not tell him I'm Jewish for fear that he would dump me? Then when I had convinced my parents that he indeed knows I'm Jewish and doesn't have a problem with it, my dad tells me to be careful because in 5 years, he will be calling me a derogatory word for Jew.

A Quickie

Dad: How do you spell testicles?

Duct Tape Fixes Everything

When I was very young, still living in the Soviet, my parents realized that I had a crooked smile. For some reason one side of my bottom lip came down a lot farther than the other. It wasn't horribly disfiguring or anything like that, but you could see it when I smiled really wide.

So naturally their solution was to pull and tape the other side of my mouth back against my face, so that it stretched and evened out. Needless to say, I still have a crooked smile.

Kegel Exercises

I was trying to check my email on my parents' computer and this is what their browser was open to:

http://www.healthline.com/galecontent/kegel-exercises#2

Where's Cathy?

My dad was recently in the hospital. Don't worry, he's going to be ok. But one of his first days there, his catheter was really bothering him and burning. My mom and I were in the room, and we suggested that he call the nurses' station using the call button on that remote they give you. So my dad pushes the button to tell the nurse that his catheter is burning:

Nurse: May I help you?
Dad: Catheter is burns.
Nurse: Excuse me?
Dad: Catheter is burns!
Nurse: I'm sorry sir, I can't understand you.
Dad: BURNS! CATH!
Nurse: Oh, you're looking for Cathy?

Mom and I couldn't help it, we started cracking up and had to intercept to tell the nurse what was going on. We kept trying to tell him we were laughing with him, but he was still upset. Poor dad!

Snake Attack

My dad sent me, my mom, and my brother an email as follows:

Subject: FW: Beware of the Boneyard: 5 ft rattler
Body: Attached is the photo of the snake in the Bone yard
Attachment: A photo of a snake

All I knew was that there was a snake, and that it was in the boneyard. Apparently, the boneyard is the nickname for one of the yards on the premises of my dad's office. And one of his co-workers found a snake there that morning.

No context? No problem!

Orphanage

When I was young, maybe 7 or 8, maybe younger, my parents used to make me keep a plastic bag of old, ripped clothes and shoes in my closet. The reason for this was that if I was bad, they would make me get it out of the closet and threaten to take me to an orphanage. This would usually result in me crying my eyes out and begging forgiveness, even if I thought I had done nothing wrong, and my parents allowing me to stay home as long as I promised to behave. I didn't really do anything horrible as a kid. Maybe not wanting to wash the dishes or bugging my mom to let me go to a friend's house who she didn't like. I do remember them often saying that I was talking back and being rude to my mom. Really, how rude can a naive 7 year old who doesn't say curse words be?

One time they took it to another level. I don't even remember what I did, but they made me take the orphanage bag out and actually put me in the car and drove me around the neighborhood. I was not good with directions (being that I was 7), so I didn't realize they were just driving in circles. I thought they were taking me to the orphanage. I remember being really scared and screaming and crying hysterically until they took me back home. I'm really surprised I ended up as ok as I am.

I Voted

I think today is an appropriate day to share a story about voting. Up until the 2008 presidential election, my parents had never voted in the US. Since there were no true democratic elections in the Soviet Union, I guess they didn't trust it, but I convinced them that the 3 of us should go vote together. I read up on the issues and on the candidates and made a mostly informed decision. Who knows what my parents did to prepare. The following is what ensued on voting day:

We wait in line to get to the booths and my dad goes ahead of me. He starts looking over the voting materials and realizes he has no idea what to do, as his English isn't that great. So he turns and looks for me in line and makes a motion for me to come over. I shake my head. He makes more agitated motions for me to come over and I shake my head harder. This happens a few more times and by that point we have attracted the attention of the volunteers, but my dad comes over and tries to get me to go with him anyway. I ask the poll workers if I am allowed to help him because he cannot read and they begrudgingly allow that. Thank goodness because we were causing a scene. My dad, mom, and I vote and we leave. 

On the way home I ask him why he voted against that one proposition that would force farms to have better animal health standards (or something like that, it was a long time ago!) and he said "Because the doctors on TV told me to." I remember those ads: people wearing white lab coats talking about voting down that proposition. He didn't even know it was about animals or anything! With people like my dad running around with the ability to vote, I'm concerned for this country.

Shark Attack

My parents are fairly new to the internet and they love to forward videos, pictures, jokes, chain letters, you name it, that their similarly computer illiterate friends send to them. They are about at the level that I was in middle school in terms of internet usage.

My dad recently sent my brother and me a really long video of a woman Scuba diving with sharks. My brother responded (a rare occurrence!), suggesting that we take him Scuba diving with us next time, as we are certified. A couple days later I get an email from my brother stating "U explain it to him" and when I scrolled down to see the email history, I saw that my dad had written to my brother "Do you think that sharks will like my meat?"

Your guess is as good as mine.

Dad

My dad is a saint for withstanding my mom and me for so many years. Another man would have been out of there long ago, but he takes it all in stride. As he puts it, "where else would I go?" Dad has an extremely tough outer shell, something that I definitely did not inherit. He also loves to joke around, but nobody ever gets it.