Dads do hard work.
We have to open pickle jars.
Eat pizza crusts. And rejected pepperoni.
Take kids to baseball games. And buy ice cream in baseball hats.
Coach soccer teams and chaperone field trips to museums.
Partake in post-game snacks and post-season pizza parties.
Snuggle on the couch to watch Indiana Jones movies.
Explain rules during football games. And baseball games. And why we hate the raiders.
Say “yes” to a little snick-snack at the grocery store.
And … research Go Ask Daddy questions. Like the first one this week.
Someone’s got to do it …
1. What other movies is Jennifer Lawrence in?
Sigh.
J-Law’s signature role, of course, is as Katniss Everdeen in Hunger Games. But other movies, such as Winter’s Bone, for which she learned to chop wood, fight, and skin squirrels, likely prepared her to become Katniss.
And to handle awkward male fans twice her age.
She was also in The Devil You Know, Silver Linings Playbook and House at the End of the Street, after which I had recurring nightmares. And by nightmares, I mean dreams about her character scampering through the forest in jeans and a white tank top.
Next question.
2. Do worms have hearts?
Focus, Eli.
Worms do not have hearts in the sense that we humans do. In fact, a worm is shaped like a section of intestine, because it basically is an intestine, with a mouth on one end and a pooper on the other. Worms have two aortic arches rings that pump blood back and forth around the digestive apparatus that make up the vast majority of the worm. But we wouldn’t call it a heart, in the true sense.
Worms do not observe St. Patrick’s Day or get teary when they hear the National Anthem.
3. How does the water at the beach stay so clear?
After a lifetime of visits Myrtle Beach and the Charleston area beaches, wrought with murky waters and angry jellyfish, you finally got to visit a beach, Grace, where you could stand in the water and see your toes.
Without dipping a beaker into the waves to test it, my guess is that there’s less algae and plankton at Topsail than some beaches. Pollution plays a role, too. Pure water is perfectly clear; ocean water isn’t pure, but the less stuff it has floating in it, the better clarity it will have when you look at your toes.
I’d prefer to believe in this theory than consider sharks, whales and ocean-swimming families are dirtier in Charleston and Myrtle Beach than in Topsail, mostly because I’ve had my mouth open when I swam in those places.
4. Why are softballs bigger than baseballs?
Because, Jennifer Lawrence.
Actually, because softball players participate in far-off tournaments an average of once every 17 minutes, the balls they use are swollen from constant battering by expensive aluminum bats.
NO REALLY, softball diamonds are several feet smaller than baseball fields. If softball players hit the smaller, harder baseball on the smaller diamond they play on, can you imagine how dangerous it would be? Softball players would be toothless gum-chummers with bruises upon bruises upon bruises.
And not even worms deserve that.
5. How do they take up-close pictures of sharks?
Very.Carefully.
Because strapping a camera to the arse of a yummy seal proved costly and provided gruesome footage, nature biographers took to using underwater cameras they hold out in front of them. Discovery Channel used an $18,000 camera for the most recent Shark Week, a high-tech model they call the Phantom HD Gold – and which some sharks refer to as “crunchy appetizer for human flank steak.”
No thanks. I’d rather be gummed to death by softball players using the wrong ball, or slowly digested by overzealous worms. Because a dad has to draw the line somewhere.
I wouldn’t film these sharks for anything.
Not even an armload of Jennifer Lawrence’s pizza crusts.
Just a dad ... 