Hamilton Spectator columnist Paul Benedetti’s essays paint a wonderfully funny portrait of family life today.
Paul Benedetti has a good job, a great family, and successful neighbours — but that doesn’t stop him from using it all as grist for a series of funny, real, and touching essays about a world he can’t quite navigate.
Benedetti misses his son, who is travelling in Europe, misplaces his groceries, and forgets to pick up his daughter at school. He endures a colonoscopy and vainly attempts to lower his Body Mass Index — all with mixed results. He loves his long-suffering wife, worries about his aging parents and his three children, who seem to spend a lot of time battling online trolls, having crushes on vampires, and littering their rooms with enough junk to start a landfill.
Introduction
1 My Kingdom for a Good Night’s Sleep
2 Handy? Me? Well, I Do Have a Toolbox …
3 Want a Lift to the Gym?
4 Hospital Daze: What I Learned This Summer
5 Brotherly Love
6 Underwear? Under the Tree, of Course!
7 “It’s Not Muskoka”
8 Celebrating Two Very Different Lives
9 Once, Twice, Three Times a Birthday
10 Bon Voyage to a Son and His Childhood
11 A Taste of Something Bitter
12 Two Gallons of Losing My Mind, Please
13 At the End, a Week-Long Celebration of Life
14 Being There
15 “But What’s Going to Happen to My Stuff?”
16 Dad’s Christmas Was About Family, Not Turkey
17 Lessons on Living
18 “What Do You Have in Mind, Dear?”
19 What, Me Forgetful?
20 The Lawn and Short of It: I Don’t Care
21 Looking Mortality in the Eye
22 The Non-Golfer Cooks in Myrtle Beach
23 The Confusing Gap Between What They Say and What I Hear
24 A Graduation That’s About Triumph and Courage
25 Memories of Dad Can Bring Tears
26 Going, Going Lawn
27 Fall Fair Affair
28 There’s Always a Part of You That Feels Eighteen
29 A Celebration of Life
30 Anybody Know Where My Meat Went?
31 The Letter
32 Memories Spring Up in My Garden
33 A Thule and His Sanity Are Soon Parted
34 The Man Who Cleared Out the West
35 Ah, Cottage Life … A Second Home to Care For
36 Hunting the Wild Tinsel and Other Traditions
37 A Gift of Long-Remembered Music
38 The Worst Angler Ever
39 When I Put On His Ring, I Think of Him
40 Paul Puts the Pro in Procrastination
41 An Empty Chair at the Dinner Table
42 There’s a Useless Antique in My House
43 I’m a Father. I Worry.
44 She Fell, Yes. But She Is Not Falling.
45 Keeping Our Kids “Safe” Inside Is, as Scientists Say, “Stupid”
46 Cottaging by the (Wet) Seat of My Pants
47 The Journey Is Half the Fun. Isn’t It?
48 Missing Matt
49 The (Old) Boys Decide to Hit the Town …
50 140-Character Witticisms
51 Old Underwear Is No Accident
52 Our New Christmas: Different, but in Many Ways the Same
53 A Low-Res Year
54 And These Are My Children … Venti, Grande, and Tall
55 Love Beyond Our Imperfections
56 The Penny Drops on Mother’s Day
57 Giving a Whole New Meaning to “Couch Surfing”
58 The Basement That Stole Christmas
59 My Wife, the Socks Maniac
60 It’s a Be-Mine Field
61 Dazed and Confused in the Grocery Aisle
62 The Great Escape: What’s Wrong with My House?
63 Who Knew They Were Listening?
64 My Mother: She Was Not Special … But She Was
65 Seawalls, Coffee Shops, and Used Books
66 Anchors Away
67 #youknowyouareoldwhen
68 Letting Go, One Child at a Time
69 Schnapps and Skinny Suits
70 Next Time, It’s the Full Mullet
71 “The Twelve Ways of Christmas”
72 Party Like It’s 1970-Something
73 It’s Been a Year: Food, Family, and Friends Have a Wonderful Healing Power
74 Your Dad Does Not Want a New Necktie
75 Every Gardener Needs a Handy Wood Man
76 September Is the Real New Year
77 There’s No Retirement in My Future
78 If Pepperoni is DEATH, I’ll Take the Risk
79 The Soundtrack of My Life
80 A Look Back at 2015, Benedetti Style
81 Grey Hair and Baggy Face? How Did This Happen?
82 Zip Up. Pull Down Handle.
83 Of Suits, Sadness, and Seasons
84 These Beers Are a Little Too Crafty
85 Things My Father Told Me
86 Convocation Miscalculation
87 Whatever Boat You Float, Fishing Is Fun
88 Do I Need to Get a Man Bag?
89 School Daze
90 Reflections on the Long Road of Parenting
Acknowledgements
