"I know, Dad!"

An excerpt from Jonah Goldberg's eulogy of/for/to his Dad:

As Josh and I grew older we sometimes, as kids are wont to do, bristled at my Dad’s tendency to tell us things we felt we didn’t need to hear or stuff we thought we already knew. “I know Dad!” became a reflexive response from Josh and me, often to our peril.

One time, when I was in high school, I was eating something with hot sauce in the kitchen. By accident, I got some on my fingers and then managed to rub the Tabasco into my eye. The stinging began almost immediately and I ran to the bathroom and started flushing my eye with water from the tap. My dad walked by the open bathroom door and saw me. He came up to me and asked what was wrong. In short spurts between splashes of water, I told him, “I…rubbed…hot…sauce…in-in-in… muh-my eye.”

My Dad paused for a moment and then in that dry, razor-like pitch-perfect monotone said, “Damn. I could kick myself for not telling you not to rub hot sauce in your eye.”


http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MGZkYjA3NmIzN2ZiNTE3ODE5NTgyMWY4YjIxMDEyZjY=