Day 7 of the Dre Beltrami Challenge

Dad Mod

Oh, hello. Welcome to Day 7 of the challenge. I’m a recent admission to Substack and thank the algorithm gods, found Dre Beltrami and her method for unlocking your inner author’s voice in 10 prompts post fairly quickly. I’ve decided to challenge myself and do them all. If you’re here to write, join the party. I’ve skipped Day 6 until a time as I am sufficiently hosed.

The Prompt

7. The Write It Like a Dad Telling a Story at Thanksgiving Experiment

You know that one uncle/dad/grandpa who tells the same story every holiday, but every year it gets wilder + more exaggerated? That’s your new writing inspiration. Take a basic experience from your business and tell it like you're that dad. The goal is to make it unnecessarily dramatic and way too entertaining.

Normal version:

I had this tough client.

Thanksgiving Dad Version:

So there I was, minding my own business, when this CLIENT FROM THE DEPTHS OF HELL descends upon my inbox like an apocalyptic plague…

Forget everything you’ve been told about word count. The more you describe something in a ridiculously YOU way, the more feels it has to connect to.

Here we go…

This prompt is funny because it’s actually the opposite to my real life experience. In shows and movies and such with all-white casts, of course this is familiar. The uncle or aunt or step-parent or black sheep who gets a little tipsy at holidays and launches into some diatribe that generally leans to some inappropriate topic, crosses a bunch of lines, and makes everyone else uncomfortable but entertained.

Asians don’t really do this. Mostly because being outspoken is offensive, rude, and patriarchally a man’s choice if he so desires versus a woman’s. My mother, her mother, and women for generations sat in silence, no matter what their thoughts, experiences, or feelings might be. Men to some extent as well. Oh, sure, they would go out and get drunk with their male friends or relatives - here might be the Thanksgiving Dad version of tales from their compulsory military service or if they had lurid stories to share pre-marriage. If they were broke, which most were growing up, they might share a laugh over thieving escapades - important formative experiences for just about all of them. But talking for the sake of it? About themselves? That’s still a concept foreign to most. They don’t like to talk about the past. They don’t like to talk about themselves. They were taught to box everything up and bury it, deep. They also don’t drink. Or enjoy any kind of vice that would enliven them to release such titanium-clad inhibitions.

So if anything, I, the American-born and raised, social drinker who learned to look people in the eye, say No, and go full Karen mode, am the one who tells the Thanksgiving Dad stories. In fact, I would go so far as to say that this is very much my story-telling style: embellishments, wild gesticulation, sprinkled expletives, caricature impersonations, repetition, occasional burps, and all.

One for the Road

Ask any of my friends, they will have heard this story. Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away, I was an academic. Did I have teaching experience? No. Did I have a teaching certification or other educational degree? Nope. Had I ever even taken some kind of instruction course? Nah. But having a Doctor of Pharmacy degree was enough to qualify me to teach the next generation of pharmacists so there I was, at a brand-spanking new school of higher education, teaching, huge chip on my shoulder and everything. Many of my students were older than I was. I was hired alongside another such green pharmacist. She and I were the same age and shared an office and even had similar clinical backgrounds from our respective residencies. Yay, besties!

Such a lovely friend! She would invite me out to salsa night and trial yoga courses at her gym (regrettable, I would need to be in traction for 2 weeks after one session) and we’d discuss our lectures and restaurants we wanted to try around the city. Well! Such a treasure wouldn’t be single for long. She was also GORGEOUS, of course, objectively. Brunette with delicate features, a stunning smile, and these light colored eyes that sparkled like the sun over a tropical ocean. Fit with a great laugh, smart as a whip. No surprise when she met a man who would lock her down. This young man was a West Point graduate and interested in politics. He frikkin restored old Mustangs as a goddamn hobby and they would do fitness-y things together. Most importantly, he was incredibly respectful and had character, in a nutshell, a Good Man.

They actually got married at West Point, a beautiful sprawling campus with manicured lawns and historic buildings. It would be a Russian Jewish affair with lavender yarmulkes available in a basket for male guests and a rabbi and a bottle of Grey Goose at every single table for the reception and the Hava Nagila-ing while my friend was tossed in a chair like so much bridal confetti. I was invited (obvi) along with several of our co-workers and my friend’s co-residents whom I’d met at previous groups hangs. It was a hike to get out to the venue but we all put on our shiny shoes and got ready to PARTAAAAY.

The wedding program outlined the broad strokes of the ceremony, including what the canopy was for (the Chuppah), how the couple would sign a marriage contract (the Ketubah), and that the groom would step on a piece of glass to crush it, and how traditionally everyone should heartily congratulate the couple on their nuptials by shouting, “MAZEL TOV!” I cannot emphasize strongly enough how clearly the program instructed everyone to yell, YELL, the, “MAZEL TOV!” bit. I’m 1000% certain it was printed in all caps. There was mention about how the louder it was, the more luck it would bring to the marriage and I wanted my good friend’s marriage to be CHOCK FULL of luck, obviously. Did I mention how big this wedding was? We filled up that entire temple, front to back. It must have been at least 300 people. Royal weddings weren’t this well attended. My colleagues and I were seated about halfway up the left side of the aisle.

So there we are, the ceremony is chopping along. I remember my friend in the planning stages was adamant that the ceremony started on time and that it was FAST. She wanted to maximize the time spent at the reception for everyone. Food and music and drinking above boring recitations more than half of us wouldn’t even understand, duh. The entirety of the ceremony must have been 15 minutes. Military precision and laser focus, darlings, chop fuckin chop. There’s drinking and dancing to be had. The rabbi fair raced through the blessings. Okay, now for the glass smashing. Here we go, I tell myself. They wrap a clear glass in a handkerchief and put it on the ground. The groom raises his foot, takes careful aim, and for good measure absolutely stomps the glass - the shatter clearly heard over the mic.

Per instruction, I leap to my feet and yell, “MAZEL—tov…”

You see, I had cleared my lap of sundry items in expectation of what I was sure, CERTAIN would happen once that glass was smashed. I thought the entire temple would erupt in wild cheering and clapping. A single, unified chorus of gaiety and goodwill and happy endings and all that shit. They fed us our line, guys. Imagine my surprise when I leap up and mid congratulation, notice that I AM THE ONLY ONE STANDING AND INDEED, SAYING ANYTHING. Having clocked my lone participation, I sat down abruptly for a thoroughly chastened, “…tov”.

Have you ever been in a crowded club, yelling over the music to someone and the song suddenly ends? No fade, no transition. Your last word just randomly lingering in the complete, unexpected silence as you cut yourself off, mid thought, pretending you don’t know who it was either? Like, who was that yelling, “Orange puke”?

To this day I remain baffled. Didn’t anybody else read that thing? Nobody else wanted to congratulate our friend on her marriage? Wish them good luck? I’m not even Jewish for chrissake. I wanted to interrogate everyone afterwards at the reception. I wanted to demand their explanations for why they didn’t do it but I was still too red in the face over it. All I got from the one co-worker was, “It’s okay. You did it for all of us.”