Sh*t My Dad Says by Justin Halpern Read Free Book Online Page A

want a Skittles?”
    On Accidentally Eating Dog Treats
    “Snausages? I’ve been eating dog treats? Why the fuck would you put them on the counter where the rest of the food is? Fuck it, they’re delicious. I will not be shamed by this.”
    On Trying Out for the High School Freshman Football Team
    “I ain’t letting you try out, you’re too skinny…. No, I hate to break it to you, but you can’t do whatever you want, and you most certainly are not a man.”
    On Bob Saget’s Demeanor While Hosting America’s Funniest Home Videos
    “Remember that face. That’s the face of a man who hates himself.”
    On Being Intimidated
    “Nobody is that important. They eat, shit, and screw, just like you. Well, maybe not just like you. You got those stomach problems.”
    On the Medicinal Effects of Bacon
    “You worry too much. Eat some bacon…. What? No, I got no idea if it’ll make you feel better, I just made too much bacon.”

Try Your Best, and When That’s Not Good Enough, Figure Something Out Quick
    “Oh spare me, being stuck in your bedroom is not like prison. You don’t have to worry about being gang-raped in your bedroom.”

    My dad has always valued education and hard work. “If you work hard and study hard, and you fuck up, that’s okay. If you fuck up and you fuck up, then you’re a fuckup,” he’s said to me on more than one occasion. But there are a lot of other factors besides effort that go into a successful and enjoyable school experience. Probably the most important one is how you fit in socially.
    When I entered junior high, I was five feet tall, weighed eighty pounds, wore gigantic glasses, and—according to my grandpa—sounded like a tiny woman. I sort of knew where I stood, physically, when on a trip to Sea World, a caricature artist drew a picture of me and it didn’t look all that exaggerated. I was basically a character a lazy screenwriter might come up with while half-assing a script: stereotypical nerd. My mom thought “awkward” just meant I was creative. So when I was heading into seventh grade, she talked my dad into sending me to a performing arts school where all the kids were just as awkward. But after seventh grade, my parents decided that the school was a waste.
    “I didn’t see them make you create or perform anything the whole year. Kinda defeats the fucking point of paying extra money for you to go to a place called the School for Creative and Performing Arts,” my dad said when alerting me that I was going to go back to public school.
    By the start of eighth grade I still hadn’t hit my growth spurt, and I looked the same as I had a year prior. In fact, I think my voice might actually have been higher. I had a good idea how eighth grade was going to go about five minutes into my first day.
    “Justin Halpern,” I announced when my homeroom teacher asked for my name.
    A big kid with a mustache named Andre leaned over to me. “Eh, puto,” he whispered.
    “Yeah?” I said, nervous.
    “Why you sound like a fucking bitch?”
    Fast-forward a year later to when I entered high school. I had grown several inches, I felt more confident, and I was being called “fag” around 85 percent less. I had a few friends, and everybody who had picked on me in eighth grade basically left me alone now.
    My dad noticed when I came home from school looking and feeling upbeat and content after the first week was over. “There’s a hop in your step now,” he said. “You look like you just finished taking a shit all the time.”
    But with my newfound happiness and social life, I started to neglect my classes. And after the first progress report of ninth grade, I had a 2.33 GPA, which I knew wasn’t good, but I didn’t think was all that terrible. My dad thought otherwise.
    “Not that bad? This ain’t fucking MIT, this is ninth grade! Look at this shit!” he said, holding the progress report up. “You got a fucking C in ninth-grade journalism? How does that even happen? You work for