The comeback is complete.
I haven’t done a Go Ask Daddy post since … the last time the Rams were in the Super Bowl. Or the Patriots didn’t cheat. That was 1776. Anyway, it’s been a while, and the girls’ questions are different now, but I still have 250 unanswered waiting on a spreadsheet.
Here’s how it works.
I select five questions each week randomly. They come from a trove of inquiries my girls ask. I capture them on bits of paper or in my phone note-taking app or in sharpie on my skin. (Not really, that last one.) Most I forget if I don’t write them down immediately.
Then I get to Googling or investigating or bugging friends on IM for answers.
Questions range from the profane (Are there sketchy places in Canada?) to the tear-jerking (Would you die for me, daddy?) All get answered. It’s a venerable encyclopedia (remember those?) of a dad’s paltry wisdom in answer to children’s untamed wonders.
Ya me voy.
1. Do they know back at the fire station if a fire engine’s siren is on?
I defer to my wonderful friend Stacey from Ohio. She also hates the Dodgers and also Tom Brady. She’s a dispatcher. She says there’s not a monitor back at the house. The fire department doesn’t monitor whether the sirens are on, though.
“Once the trucks leave the building, there are no sirens (in the firehouse),” Stacey says. “The dispatch is on an open mic, so everyone left at the house knows what’s going on.”
We got a visit or two from a fire truck. We kept having false alarms by mountainous kitties moving about with motion sensors on. The last fireman got kind of fed up. Said he was going to kick the door in if we didn’t get there first and disarm the alarm.
Our bluberous and nervous cats wouldn’t have survived that! So you know what? We stopped having false alarms. #SirYesSir
2. Have they made a new shoe or car yet in 2019?
(Note: The original question said 2015. Yeah, some of these puppies have been on the shelf for a minute or 326,092.)
New shit for 2019 is totally space age – and customized for the lazy. (Makes me think our future might look like what we saw on Wall-E (greatest love story of all time, by the way) after all.)
Behold the self-tying shoe. Nike engineers actually made good on the invention made famous in Back to the Future. Check it out. Creator Tiffany Beers can tell it better:
As for cars … hell, they already have some new and redesigned models for 2020! The 2019s had a few come out in late 2018. They look like the Matchbox cars I played with as a kid. So sleek. So futuristic. So batmobile.
So many by BMW and Bentley have no context because those cars – or their late-model counterparts – don’t often park in our barrio. BMW 8 series and Audi 8s and such. It’s no surprise the Hyundai Nexo caught my attention, though.
I drive a Hyundai. Gray with gray interior. If ever a car was designed to blend in … this one does it. Put me on a concrete parking deck and I’m virtually undetectable.
It’s a battery-electric model that’s sleek and sexy, yet grounded. It can go 370 miles without a recharge. And it’s available after Q2 – in California only. Figures. But what the hell is a dodgers fan going to do with a gorgeous car like this?
3. Do the Lions play every Thanksgiving?
Question: How do you get billing for the Detroit Lions during Super Bowl week?
Answer: Have the universe pick one of the two questions in the bank about the Detroit Lions during Super Bowl week.
There’s a turkey joke in here somewhere, too, but that’s too easy. Especially because the Dallas Cowboys also play on Thanksgiving. It all began in 1934, five years after the Lions were born in Portsmouth, Ohio.
They’d moved to Detroit that year, but couldn’t compete for fan loyalty.
The Tigers were the talk of the town. The Lions could barely fill a stadium. Team owner George A. Richards came up with the wacky idea of playing on Thanksgiving. Richards, a radio station owner, talked NBC into broadcasting the game, against the Chicago Bears.
It was a great matchup back then. And the Lions sold out their little 26,000-seat stadium, which is kind of like what the Los Angeles Chargers play in. It was a good game. Detroit lost. (HIstory repeats itself!) But a tradition was born.
4. What do different lightsaber colors mean?
Look, I don’t know who, but someone snuck in and added a lot of shit to Star Wars.
Disney, perhaps? Flash fiction? I don’t know. Maybe the Shaw of Iran. So I’m going to give you the lowdown on lightsabers in the Star Wars universe. The original. No LEGO Star Wars or Disney Star Wars or Star Wars on ice. Pay attention.
GREEN
For who? The peaceful. The meditators. The turn-the-cheek crowd.
Who on Star Wars, though? Luke, Yoda
Who in sports? The New York Jets, The Oakland As
RED
For who? The aggressive. The evil. The cut in line in front of you at Aldi crowd.
Who on Star Wars, though? Darth Vader. Duh. Darth Maul and Kylo Ren.
Who in sports? New England Patriots, obvi. Dodgers. They have a little red.
BLUE
For who? Liberty and justice for all. Those with mad skilz. The lightsaber tricks on YouTube crowd.
Who on Star Wars, though? Obi-Wan, Anakin Skywalker
Who in sports? The Denver Nuggets, Tennessee Titans
PINK/PURPLE
For who? The undeclared, the use-both-sides Jedis. The switch lanes 50 times crowd.
Who on Star Wars, though? Mace Windu, Mara Jade Skywalker
Who in sports? Colorado Rockies, Minnesota Vikings, Sacramento Kings
Which lightsaber is right for you? Take this quiz.
5. What is falafel?
It’s the failed color of a lightsaber, the same as day old guacamole, designated for the Jedi who shows up after the fight, with no belt and cramps in his calves.
It’s clumps of chickpeas or fava beans, deep-fried, from the Middle East. Basically, if Tehran had a County Fair with carnies and impossible balloon-popping games, that’d be sold in the food tent. It’s like hush puppies for Pakistanis.
It’s like the answer to hummus for the KFC crowd. It looks delicious, though, and I’d so have a clump or two with some fried flounder. I might even share mine with Kylo Ren.
But not Tom Brady. Some evil just isn’t falafelable.
Just a dad ... 
A guest poster brought me in. This is what made me stay. Yah, the Lions and Thanksgiving are tradition. The losing record is too, still a fan. I took the quiz and was very surprised that I’m a blue one. Not for sports though, nope. Welcome back, Eli.
That was back in the day, wasn’t it? So fitting that you’re the first comment today – and that Beth is second. My favorite Michiganders.
I so admire your fandom. It’s what keeps me hopeful for the Nuggets and Rockies.
so good to see these questions back and answered. these particular ones really connected to my life. first off, i have a thing for firemen, so no more need be said about that.. also the lions, yes, the turducken is a tradition in the d and no matter how badly they play it just adds to the event in my opinion.
So good to see you here, Beth. Sometimes these questions randomly come together cosmically. Your thing-for-firemen thing is widely contagious – by men, even. Poor Lions. I can imagine the tradition of playing and usually losing on Thanksgiving feels like those dreams when you show up in your underwear without having brushed your teeth.
Or is that just me?
Spot on
A Middle Eastern restaurant opened near my house, and I really wanted to try falafel, but the restaurant went out of business before I got there. Maybe that means they didn’t sell good falafel. I’ll eat it someday. It looks yummy.
Maybe this was falafel destiny, Aj. I’ve heard of such things. It just wasn’t meant for that falafel to fall on your plate.
It does look yummy. Maybe we could try it as a baseball game in Yemen.
I haven’t heard the term Michigander in a while. 😊 And I want my lightsaber to be a wonderful golden-yellow. I wonder what that means? Great post.
Michigander is one of the cooler names for state residents. I’d venture to guess golden-yellow lightsabers would signify supreme wisdom, skill, and a propensity to crave lemon bars with powdered sugar, not to be too exact or anything.
LOL Eli, I love your definition and lemon bars. The powdered sugar just leaves evidence, ah, I mean a mess.
I kind of wear that evidence proudly on my shirt and keyboard, if I’m being honest.
So…
1. We have a friend who is a fireman 👨🚒in Dallas. In a not-so-nice part of the city🏭. He says the firehouse is loud.. unless it is the middle of the night and they get that proverbial 15 min cat nap before the next call. He has seen some really bad stuff. I commend all first repsonders! 🚒
It has to be so tough to wait and wait and then boom, be your best and save lives. Commendation definitely deserved!
Lol.. you’re hilarious!
2. (I don’t know what happened to the first part of my post) 🤔
Gotta get me a pair of those shoes👟!! They might actually fit my poor high arched feet!👣
3. The first year we were in MI for hubby’s residency 🏨he had to work Thanksgiving 🍗day. The hospital he worked at serviced the stadium where the Lions 🦁 played football. We had to go to see him that day since he was working and one of the football 🏈 players was brought in. Apparently a fullback because the xray tech👩⚕️ came down the hall with eyes👀 as big as saucers. She was mumbling something about him being the biggest man she had ever seen! 😂
4. I would personally carry a green 💚 light sabor because I am all
about peace and tranquility 🧘♀️
5. I have never had falafel 🥗..and probably never will! It sounds weird! 😊
Hope you are having an amazing day!! 💜💛💙❤💚
Yes, a peaceful warrior you are, Courtney. And apparently, I now talk like Yoda. (Mine’s blue, by the way. This quiz is legit.)
Hmm will have to take the quiz and get back to ya… I may be completely wrong!!!! 😳
Well…according to the test I am blue 💙 also. Hmm 🤔 After reading the questions, that is probably more accurate 😉
No one is admitting to red yet …
I’m sure…
I’m so glad to see a return of these fun questions and answers! I had no idea light saber colors meant so much. And falafel is delicious. I haven’t had it in ages and now I want some!
I’ve missed it, Beth! You can tell a lot from the color of a lightsaber – and that was only part of the chart I found.
Maybe you should change to Coffee and Falafel for a day …
Thank you, my brother. Any man worth his salt should have these questions answered, beautiful daughters or not. It’s a guy thing. By the way, great falafels here in the Seattle area! Once in a while, if one is lucky, one is served a plate of these marvelous mounds by a Pakistani Jedi holding a blue lightsaber. Said lightsaber is sometimes used to point laser beams at Tom Brady on cold nights in hell, but I digress.
Thank *you*, my brother. These questions keep me young. Who knew Seattle was a falafel hub?
Pakistani Jedis are the best. Digressions that indict the Tom Bradys and Manny Machados of the world are welcome here in this space.
Falafel is so good! And i ended up with a blue lightsaber. Surprise, surprise.
I think if you dig falafel, you automatically fall into the blue lightsaber category. Where my evil readers at?
Oh my god/ my last comment has disappeared and it was really good. Dang it!
Anyway, I don’t sports, but I do know that everyone hates Tom Brady. Whether it’s the cheating, the hot wife, the fact that he can’t give anyone else a chance at a super bowl… seems there are a lot of palpable reasons.
Self tying shoes. Can we get lazier as a society?
Also falafel: food of the gods, isn’t it? Xoxo
Stupid WordPress! It needed a snack.
I’ll know I’m really on my way to enlightenment when I can treat Tom Brady well. Until then …
What happens when they meld the self-tying shoe and something like toilet paper?
I’ve never had falafel, so until then, brie will be my food of the gods.
OH MY GOSH I’ve wondered what falafel is!! And apparently been too lazy to google it. You’ve imparted real knowledge today. (Actually, I didn’t know the light saber stuff either. Or the self-tying shoe thing. Damn, I gained all kinds of smarts.)
I have been curious about light saber colors for years and glad to get that cleared up – thanks 🙂 Happy Day – Enjoy!
Right? My kids asked that a while back … also makes me know what kind of Jedi I really am!
Thanks for the lesson and the laugh (lafafle). Good to see you back. I always wondered what Tahran carnies would eat.