The part where my Dad boycotts mashed potatoes. - ⚡️Kristen Kalp

The part where my Dad boycotts mashed potatoes.

My Dad is a quiet man.  My longest phone conversation with him lasted 7 minutes, and I regularly chat with strangers for up to two hours at a clip.  While growing up, Mom did the cooking.   Dad rode his epic lawnmower around the yard:  headlights on, engines firing, guttural race car noises barely audible over the drone of the tractor.

At Thanksgiving last year, Dad threw his fork down and declared, “I HATE MASHED POTATOES.”  I have seen the man eat three helpings of mashed potatoes at every major holiday meal I can recall having attended.  The guy pounds the potatoes back like a faux-Irishman with a yard of green beer on St. Patty’s Day.

“Oh,”  Mom sighs.  “Anything else?”

“I hate HAM, too.”

They’ve been married for twenty-nine years.  It took twenty-nine years for Dad to admit to not liking mashed potatoes AND ham.  (Like I said, he’s quiet.)

Please please, don’t let your dislikes lead to an angry-yet-hilarious encounter twenty-nine years from now.

Just admit it:  I hate ________________.

Where X = shooting weddings, holding sales sessions, editing photos, taking out the trash, cleaning closets, Twitter, Facebook, or ham.  Then do your best to work the stuff you hate out of your business and into the hands of people who love ______.

I would totally have eaten Dad’s share of the mashed potatoes with unbridled glee.  And he could have had my cranberry sauce.

P.S.  No more business frappuccinos.