Manimal Crackers

Simon Says "Boo"

I honestly couldn't believe my luck. The ghost of Manimal himself? In my grandparents' old apartment? This was amazing. Super-excited, I rushed to tell Mom & Dad what happened.

"Mom, Dad, guess who I found here in Grandma and Grandpa's room?"

"Ummm.....Justin Bieber?" asked Dad. "Is he having a concert up here?"

"Really?" I said in disgust at his Dumb Dad Joke. "I highly doubt Justin Bieber would be caught dead in some dusty old people's place." Parents can be so idiotic like that.

"Let me guess...John Hodgman?" asked Mom. "Is he giving away autographed copies of his latest book?"

"Seriously?" I said. Look, he's head and shoulders above Justin Bieber, so he wouldn't look too out of place there, but still. "No, no, no, it's the guy from Manimal," I confessed to them, forgetting that Mom and Dad, like most people, were absolutely clueless about the show.

"What?" said Dad.

"Oh, that's about men...who are sexy beasts!" said Mom in her lusty voice toward my dad.

Yeah, whatever, Mom. We get it, you have the hots for my dad.

"Oh, this is actor Simon MacCorkindale;" I told my parents. Cue both of them drawing a blank. Realizing that they probably had like, no idea who he was, I scrambled to make out a role he was in. "He was in The Sound of Music," I said. "He couldn't have been in the film version- he was like, seven years old. He played Captain Von Trapp in a 2008 stage version. Dad, you should have taken me!" I exclaimed.

"Yeah, I wasn't planning to go to England," said Dad. "Plus, we were preoccupied with the election back then."

"Thanks a lot, Dad," I said.

"Oh, but didn't you want to follow the election? After all, it was history in the making. After all, Barack Obama was the first president since Kennedy to have washboard abs!" said Dad. "And as a historian and someone old enough to remember the Kennedy administration, I should know!"

Yeah, whatever Dad.

I said nothing, but merely cringed with embarrassment. Introducing Simon to my family was NOT going to be an easy task.

"Jessica was really into politics back then," said Mom. "Even if she could get a little obsessive over certain candidates, it was a huge improvement over the cartoon movies she used to fixate over."

"Oh, what a delightful family you have, Miss Rothenberg!" said Simon. "Who's your father, if I may ask?"

"My dad's a doctor," I told him.

"Doctor?" he asked. "How delightful!"

"Not that kind of doctor," I told Simon. "He teaches British history at my school."

Not realizing that Simon didn't get the "gist" of what I was saying, I motioned to him "Simon, he teaches British history at my school."

"Pardon?" he asked.

"He's...kind of like the guy from your show," I motinoed to him. "He's a professor, Dad teaches British history..."

"And my wife says that I'm a real tiger," he motioned.

"Well, it's like I always told my girls- You gotta find a guy like your Dad!" said Mom.

"Of course," I told him. "She's even on videotape saying it!"

Said home movie, by the way, involved Dad not only putting dishes in but taking them out of the dishwasher! What a concept for a Dad, eh? Small wonder Mom married him.