{"id":309,"date":"2009-04-04T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-04-04T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/verastic.com.s96953.gridserver.com\/site\/?p=309"},"modified":"2009-04-04T04:00:00","modified_gmt":"2009-04-04T04:00:00","slug":"happy-birthday-daddy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/social\/happy-birthday-daddy.html","title":{"rendered":"Happy Birthday, Daddy!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today is my daddy’s birthday.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
I want to type a long poetic, literary post, full of twists and turns, full of enigmatic sentences that have conspicuous meanings. \u00a0What an oxymoron, I know. \u00a0I want to write an epistle about my daddy and talk about how he is a tall Iroko tree in the forest, but you see, daddy isn’t tall…. or slender. \u00a0He’s about 5’10, I suppose. \u00a0And he has a belly that has been pregnant for as long as I can remember. \u00a0Rumor (aka my mother) has it that the pregnancy is as a result of the bottles of Gulder he used to down. \u00a0Who knows really? \u00a0Daddy swears he doesn’t have a big tummy. \u00a0He must see Will Smith’s abs when he looks @ himself in the mirror. \u00a0But who am I to judge?<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
I haven’t said happy birthday to him yet, but when I do, I know how the conversation will go.\u00a0 It’s the same thing each year.<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
Me:<\/span> Happy birthday, dad!<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
Dad:<\/span> *Surprised*<\/span> Oh, nne, you’re right oo!\u00a0 Today is April 4th.\u00a0 I almost forgot.<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
Me:<\/span> You didn’t almost forget.\u00a0 You forgot.<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
Dad:<\/span> Well…<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
Me:<\/span> Well, nothing. \u00a0Happy birthday. \u00a0(I’d like to seal it with a kiss on his shiny head, a place where hair once used to reside. \u00a0It is now smoother than his face, and there is no evidence (other than old pictures) that hair once grew there. \u00a0No evidence that that once used to be a fertile ground. \u00a0Oh, baldness, what have you done to my daddy? \u00a0On the positive side, when the sun shines on that part of his head, it beams. \u00a0You should see it after I rub vaseline on it. \u00a0It’s as clear as a mirror, I tell you.)<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
Yeap. \u00a0That’s pretty much how the conversation will go. \u00a0He forgets his birthday every year. \u00a0I don’t know what kind of person forgets his own birthday. \u00a0I look very much like my dad, and in some ways we are alike, but when it comes to birthdays and dates in general, we couldn’t be more different. \u00a0I take my birthday very seriously; how can I ever forget January 14th? \u00a0I am even thinking about how to make January 14th a global holiday. \u00a0Apart from January 14th, I spend every other day of the year thinking about January 14th. \u00a0But this post shouldn’t be about me…<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
So here’s to wishing my daddy – father of Vera & husband of Mama Vera – a very, very happy birthday.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
* Sometimes I think my father chose the wrong profession (medicine); maybe he should have been a comedian instead. \u00a0He really is a very funny man. \u00a0Besides, being a comedian would have saved my butt countless unwaranted and unwanted injections. \u00a0Yes, I may have been ill, but I would have gladly swallowed – even chewed – a carton of pills before taking one injection.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
* My daddy, the one and only Ogbuefi Nnanyelugo of my life. \u00a0Per the title, funny enough, he’s never killed a cow oo… at least none that I know of. \u00a0I remember plenty of goats – especially that one goat that escaped from my compound. \u00a0Dad was really vexed. \u00a0We were supposed to use that goat for Easter. \u00a0But who can blame the goat? \u00a0I’d have run too if I were him. \u00a0Funniest part was when we went to the nearby market to look for the goat. \u00a0Of course, it wasn’t hard spotting our brown goat – amongst thousands of other brown goats. \u00a0Dad tried to guess our goat by looking at the eyes of the goats in the market. \u00a0Apparently, our goat would have recognized him; it would have been obvious in the goat’s eyes. \u00a0Yeah, sure!<\/span> \u00a0Needless to say, we went without a goat that Easter. \u00a0That was his punishment to us for losing his goat. \u00a0I couldn’t have cared less. \u00a0I hated goat meat.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
* My father, the man who farts out loud and forces us to hail him, “Ogbuefi Nnanyelugo!!” \u00a0The loudness of the fart wasn’t even the problem for me; it could have been confused as the sound effect of a loud pot of boiling soup (some loud soup it woulda been though). \u00a0The problem was the stench of the fart. \u00a0I don’t know what that man ate, but it was doing him something wicked.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
* My father, the man who gets confused when he’s talking to his employees and speaks all the languages in one sentence: English, Igbo, Hausa, & Russian. \u00a0The look on the employee’s face is always priceless.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
* My father, the man who ruined my chance to go home for one weekend when I was in boarding school. \u00a0I told him to come and talk to my Principal, a very strict Reverend Sister. \u00a0Dad was supposed to be meek and friendly. \u00a0Instead, when Sister Mary Patrick hinted hesitation in letting me leave for the weekend, dad told her she was very pompous and that it wasn’t a very good look on a woman. \u00a0I obviously never did get to go home that weekend.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
* My father, the man who comes home on Saturday night, heads straight for the kitchen, steals a big piece of meat, goes back to the bedroom, eats it and hides the bones under the bed. \u00a0When asked if he ate a piece of meat, he denies it squarly. \u00a0Never mind the obvious shiny lips he has and even the drop of oil stain on his shirt. \u00a0Pray, do tell, where did the oil come from? \u00a0It’s a wonder we never had rats – considering all the meat bones that were under the bed.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
* My father, the man who proudly sucked his mother’s breast until she died. \u00a0She died after I was born, so she wasn’t young. \u00a0He must have been sucking powdered milk. \u00a0If one needs a ‘human subject” to study for the “effects of sucking mother’s breast till she becomes a grandmother,” I think my daddy would be a perfect candidate.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
* My father, the only man I know of who puts his bread & egg in the freezer because it’s too hot. \u00a0How hot can bread be?<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Oh, happy birthday, daddy!! \u00a0May God continue to keep you alive and well. \u00a0May you never lose your sense of humor. \u00a0 May you change from your mischievous ways of making us smell your fart. \u00a0Seriously… so not cool. \u00a0May you continue to be you (yes, I realize it means you’ll continue farting for our inhaling pleasure). \u00a0Yippee … aren’t we lucky? \u00a0*rolling eyes*<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today is my daddy’s birthday. I want to type a long poetic, literary post, full of twists and turns, full of enigmatic sentences that have conspicuous meanings. \u00a0What an oxymoron, I know. \u00a0I want to write an epistle about my daddy and talk about how he is a tall Iroko tree in the forest, butRead More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"twitter_14738191_14738191":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[],"tags":[144,14],"class_list":["post-309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","tag-birthday","tag-dad","entry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nHappy Birthday, Daddy! - Verastic<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/social\/happy-birthday-daddy.html\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Vera Ezimora\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/social\/happy-birthday-daddy.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/social\/happy-birthday-daddy.html\",\"name\":\"Happy Birthday, Daddy! - Verastic\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2009-04-04T04:00:00+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/#\/schema\/person\/2c1b7969fbea03a45b97d54a5228cc1a\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/social\/happy-birthday-daddy.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/social\/happy-birthday-daddy.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/social\/happy-birthday-daddy.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Happy Birthday, Daddy!\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/\",\"name\":\"Verastic\",\"description\":\"Recklessly authentic.\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/#\/schema\/person\/2c1b7969fbea03a45b97d54a5228cc1a\",\"name\":\"Vera Ezimora\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f6c1e19c23a08351aab97f35d3ca650f0b87e7e96937f85baf0faf6e0834bc51?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f6c1e19c23a08351aab97f35d3ca650f0b87e7e96937f85baf0faf6e0834bc51?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Vera Ezimora\"},\"description\":\"I mean, I'm a lot of things - a Writer, Blogger, Speaker, Vlogger, Content Creator, Storyteller, Truth-Sayer, Milk-Lover, Yogurt-Addict, Entrepreneur, Daughter, Wife, Mom, & Nwa Jesu. 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