I never know when he'll bark at me or amuse me, or even educate me.

Our coffee maker is broken, so my dad hollered for me to help make it. Actually, he doesn't really ask, he just decided that he knew how. He wanted to test me, really, to see if I knew how, and I had my own on-the-spot method, while he had his own, which he thought was the correct way, telling me that my way was wrong. After I rolled my eyes at this statement, I showed him my method while he went about his own, and in the end, they both tasted the same, but his had more coffee grounds in it. "This is how I made the coffee when I was out there last year", he said, referring to Jamaica, breaking into a story of how he use to make coffee when he was younger. You know when the older generation tells you the way things were done back in the day? He explained the process of picking the beans, getting the husks, or trash as he called it, and yadda yadda yadda, several hours later, they were drinking coffee. It's like he was taking me back waaaaaaaay into the past, but he comes from Trelawny, a parrish in Jamaica, and remember, it's a third world country, and even back then, there was barely any technology or any advancements in North America around the same era. So we had our moment, he's going over his mail and I'm rubbing his grey head, shaved last week, so there's tiny grey and black prickly shafts poking out. Moments later, he's asking me if I'm going out, knowing that it's a rehearsal, and I know he's leading to end in his barking at me. I tell him that the play I'm rehearsing for, which I'm sure he talked to my mom about, but is testing to see if I'm lying to him, I'm not getting paid for. He looks straight at me and with both barrells, blasts me with,"Get a real job and stop all this foolishness! You're lucky you live at home. I'm not afraid of you", assuming my mom isn't as gruff as he is in telling me what to do with my life. I have that phrase tape recorded in my memory bank since I graduated, forever staying fresh. It's starting to get so familiar that I not only know he'll say it for the rest of my life, but I've accepted it and pushed onward regardless. If I get to say my acceptance speech, I know I'll say, "....and this is to those who had no faith in me. You gave me a reason to prove you wrong."

I can't lead him to believe that his words are to be disregarded though, or else he'll resort to some drastic move.