As February approaches each year, I get a bit nostalgic because it’s when my dad’s birthday comes around. This year, I thought I’d honor his memory by sharing one of the funniest days of my life with him. What makes this memory extra special is that it involves both my sisters.
This story goes back almost 20 years, but I remember it vividly. It all started in Las Vegas…
My dad, sisters, and I were in Las Vegas for a long weekend celebrating my youngest sister turning 40. To avoid any possible prosecution–although the statute of limitations has surely expired–let’s say we were all staying at the Monte Carlo Hotel. My dad and I shared one room and my sisters another.
On the first day of our stay, my dad somehow managed to slide off the toilet seat. Apparently the seat was not attached to the toilet correctly and it came apart. I called down to the front desk to explain the situation. The woman asked if anyone had been injured. At this point, I asked her to hold on.
“Dad, are you okay. Did you get hurt?”
His eyes lit up, he grabbed his back, fell onto his bed and said, “Yes, I’m in pain.”
I returned to the phone call, trying not to laugh, and explained that my father had hurt his back. After a little back and forth, my dad said “Find out what can they do for me?”
He rejected their first few offers, but agreed to sign a waiver stating he would not sue the hotel for any damages from this incident. In exchange, we received a free hotel stay in that room including comps on anything we charged to the room. For my dad, he’d hit the jackpot.
My sisters came to our room to see what our dinner plans were going to be. Once they learned about my dad’s scheme, they rushed out as fast as they could, not wanting to be accomplices. I, however, was in deep. So here comes the funniest part for me. We didn’t want to spend the night stuck in the room so I had to come up with a disguise to get my dad out into the hallway looking like someone else. This involved him changing into a completely different set of clothes, wearing some kind of scarf across his face, and a baseball cap pulled down low on his eyes. Oh God, it was too much.
We found my sisters and had dinner together. When they learned that all our meals, drinks, and a cabana rental were included as part of the deal my dad finagled, they were “all in.”
So why did I title this story Swenga? After Vegas, my dad returned with me to San Diego. My husband had heard a little of what happened at the hotel and asked my dad to retell the story which we now fondly call “Deposition in Carlsbad.”
My 70-year-old dad retold the story with such earnestness, I laughed until I cried. When he got to the part where the toilet seat moved, he swept his arm across his body and said, “Swenga, the seat went one way and I went the other.”
RIP Dad.
