My dad called last night to apologize to Kevin and confess.

You see, Empress Chrissie is not a random phenomenon. Oh no, EC is an inherited trait from the Terry side of the family. After reading my entry, my father was overwhelmed by a sense of shame for he knew that EC came from the Terry clan. So last night he called and spoke to Kevin, man to man.

I heard something about a laptop in payment for Kevin emotional distress and signing some sort of release for all future harm but I digress.

I must admit that it is nice to know that I’m not some random freak of nature but instead, a freak of heredity. My dad, you see, is the Emperor of Tradition. Certain things Must Be in order for the Terry world to continue. The Emperor of Tradition dictates that you must stay up until midnight on New Years Eve and drink root beer floats with vanilla ice cream. Sounds normal, right? But what you don’t also know is that the root beer Must Be A&W and you Must Use the long spoons with the twisted handles – any other root beer or spoons are unacceptable. Many families make Christmas cookies, right? But in our family, the Emperor of Tradition has dictated that the cookies Must Be decorated with five colors of frosting – white, yellow, green, red and blue – and the frosting Must Be applied with special mini-knives that are used for this purpose only. On Christmas Eve, it Must Be that we all watch a certain version of Scrooge (black and white – no coloration allowed) and on Christmas morn, it Must Be that presents in the stockings are opened first before all others. (For the curious, here is a hierarchy of present opening established by the Emperor of Tradition. Presents Must Be opened in the following order: stockings, presents from co-workers, then relatives, and finally immediate family.)

So my father confessed that when he heard about the Christmas lights that weren’t yellow and white but pink and orange, his first reaction mimicked mine – disgust and horror at an obvious violation of a Must Be. The Emperor of Tradition and Empress Chrissie spent a few minutes soothing each other’s ruffled sense of tradition while my mother and Kevin rolled either eyes and sighed. (Actually, couldn’t see my mother but I swear I heard her eyes rolling over the telephone line.)

You know the old saying, look to the mother before marrying the daughter? Well, I’m afraid poor Kevin was sadly led astray by this advice. In this situation, look to the father before marrying the daughter would have been more appropriate. Ah well, at least I can rest easy secure in the knowledge that I will carry on the traditions of Must Be. Lucky Kevin.

PS It rained last night and today. It’s looking like we may get a 30 day rain streak. Is that great or what?!?