Obsession

Dexter the three legged cat has been missing for a week.  This has been rather upsetting for my father given that he has lost one of the objects of his obsession.  Thankfully, he has a revolving and seemingly unlimited supply to keep his life running smoothly.  His two latest?  Tide sticks and ABBA.  He keeps a small army of Tide sticks around to take care of any embarrassing spills that might occur in his daily routine.  My solution?  Finish wearing your clothes and wash them at the end of the day like someone without OCD might do.  If my clothing becomes overly soiled, I might even change clothes, but Tide sticks and other similar inventions seem like a huge waste of money to me.  Given that most people don't want to be weird alone, he has tried to suck my mother into his eccentricities.  Anytime she spills something down her front like old people are highly likely to do, he rushes to her aid with a Tide stick.  Mom refuses to humor many of his idiotic ideas, but she has given this one an opportunity to work.  Unfortunately for dad, she was not impressed because she feels like it just spreads the mess over a larger area.  Like me, my mother prefers to wander around like a slob until she removes her clothes for the day.  My daddy, as usual, won't let a few wise naysayers destroy his excitement.  Here he is at our Fourth of July BBQ.  Notice the Tide Stick in his pocket?  He dropped food on his shirt three or four times during the meal, would nonchalantly put down his fork, whip out his Tide stick, wash away his embarrassment, and continue eating.

  

This leads me to his second and certainly more annoying current obsession:  ABBA.  More specifically, the video Waterloo by ABBA.  Don't misunderstand me.  I actually really like ABBA.  I love the musical Mamma MIA and have owned several of their greatest hits albums.  To tell you the truth, I was surprised my dad even knew who ABBA was given that his taste in music is rather limited.  His music collection consists of every song ever sung by the Beatles, a smattering of Simon and Garfunkel, some Peter Paul and Mary, and a bit of Johnny Cash.  He owns a few other gems but they aren't worth mentioning because he listens to them so much it makes me sick to ride in the car with him.  Hence, you might be able to imagine how surprised I was when I heard him listening to some ABBA about a week ago.  Surprised - until I found out it was the Waterloo video he was watching.  At that point I was convinced it was just one of his little jags he gets on and my suspicions were confirmed when he watched the video OVER AND OVER AND OVER about ten times while I was there.  True to form, after the Fourth of July BBQ was over, he pulls out his phone and begins watching Waterloo.  I began to ridicule him in front of everyone which is why he is smiling a bit in the pic.  My ridicule was an attempt to convince him to cease and desist with ABBA, but alas, a few minutes later while he was washing dishes, I caught him at it again:

He left to run some errands before the fireworks and when he got back he was upset about something.  I told him I could cheer him up.  I should have had Waterloo ready to go because by the time I had it pulled back up on YouTube, he had flipped me off a dozen times and my siblings already knew what I was up to.  Therefore, I missed the element of surprise and didn't even get to take any pics of his bird flying.  Oh well, I sure hope Dexter comes back soon because if I have to listen to Waterloo one more time, I might find a new and unusual use for a Tide stick that the manufacturers never saw coming and that I'm pretty sure my dad WON'T develop an obsession for...