Not funny, except when it is...

Every Friday, I go to my parents house to have coffee and barfmeal with my dad. You see, he eats oatmeal for breakfast, oatmeal disgusts me and it has ever since reading "Ramona Quimby, Age 8". You know, the part when they have the jars of oatmeal dyed blue w/ the fly larvae in it? And it makes Ramona sick and she throws up in school? Well, ever since then, oatmeal has made me sick, so I call it "barfmeal". I have had sympathy sickness for Ramona Quimby since the 80's. What the hell? Anybarforama, my dad eats barfmeal, I eat an english muffin, we both drink coffee and we talk. We talk about any and everything from sports to the comics page in the paper, to the serious side of life, like health care, politics, and more recently, his prostate cancer diagnosis.

This morning, he and I got into a discussion about Catholic guilt. I can't remember how or why it came up, but I mentioned that I believe one of the biggest contributors to Catholic guilt is the "no-meat-on-Fridays-during-Lent" thing. I'm sure there's a proper name for the "no-meat-on-Fridays" thing, but don't ask me what it is. The Catholic church doesn't want me and my homosexual brothers and sisters, so I've taken to setting up a grill outside the church on Fridays during Lent and eating meat all over the place with a bunch of homos. Not really, but maybe I'll start! Anymoo, I said the meat rule was a rule that I'm sure every single Catholic has broken sometime in their life, and the guilt is overwhelming since it's such a simple rule to follow. My dad then said, "Well sure, and it should be. I remember one time I went out to lunch with your uncle Gerry. We went to a place known for it's burgers, I think was called Tip Top, they had hand packed burgers, real thick, juicy. Well I ate one...on a Friday...during Lent...and now I have cancer." He and I looked at each other, then burst out laughing. I laughed so hard, I was almost lizzing(laughing and whizzing, courtesy of Liz Lemon and the 30 Rock writers). He laughed so hard, his face got all red and squinty, and had he not been sitting at the table, he would have slapped his knee. Yes, my father is a knee slapper...literally.

Many of you might not think that's funny, laughing about cancer, but if you know my dad at all, then you know that laughing is what he does. And if you know my dad at all, then you love him for saying that and laughing about it. God knows I do...