My dad has a man cave. It’s a place where my mom fears to tread with any kind of cleaning tool. For when she does try to clean there then whatever my father can’t find afterward will be her fault. And as he sometimes struggles to find his nose with his hands, that is a serious danger.
One result of this is the precarious piles of electronics and tools scattered about which slowly migrate around the room. Like sand dunes in a windy desert. A second one is that we never know what kind of present to buy him. You don’t know how often we’ll think we’ve gotten him the perfect gift, only to find out that in some pile he’s already got some better version that he never uses. (I have no idea why always feels he needs to point that out).
And so, whenever father’s day rolls around, we spend far too much time looking for something weird and wacky to give him. This year we settled on a Bobblehead. That decision was pretty easy. I mean, bobbleheads are cool! What wasn’t quite so easy was deciding which of the ideas we had was the best one.
Here are our choices.
The best day
In your family did you hang out mostly with mom and only got access to your dad on the weekends because of his job? That was what it was like in mine. But that made it so that those days where we did get to spend some time together were extra special. And that’s true not only because we got to eat lots of junk food!
Like when we went to the zoo and that day he tried to get me to like his remote-control model airplane hobby (I crashed the plane). Those days matter to him too. He’s still got a picture over his desk, with us standing over the wreck – me with big sad eyes, him with a martyred expression. So we thought, hey couldn’t we get them to make bobblehead versions of those pictures? I mean, all they need is a photo, right? Then they can make versions of us where we were still cute and adorable and dad could forgive us almost anything.
Then he can put those bobbleheads in prominent places – preferably not on top of one of his migrating piles.
His favorite action hero
My dad has this thing for cheesy action heroes from the 90s. I don’t know why. Maybe it reminds him of his younger days.
So, we came up with the idea of getting him one of his favorite heroes in bobblehead form. After all, they were all big chested, jawed and foreheaded (is that a word?). So they look great if you had them converted. Can you imagine a Jean Claude Van Damme bobblehead? Or what about Arnold Swarzenegger back when he spent more time flexing than speaking?
I’m going to bobble you up!
But then my brother had an even better idea. Why stop there? Why not get him one of his absolute favorite action hero? Who is that? Well himself, obviously! I mean, any man watching those kinds of movies ends up projecting, right? In our mind’s eye, it’s us doing the unbelievable stunts (and doing a fair shade better than the hack on the screen). So why not make my dad the star?
It’s not hard to do with custom bobbleheads. Just select a big body and put their heads on top. To make it extra effective you can have the words ‘our action hero’ inscribed on the base. What’s not to love?
Tease him a bit
Is your dad a bit of a tease? Do his eyes (and hopefully only his eyes) so now and then stray to women other than your mother? Well, then the gift my sister Susan came up with might be perfect for your dad as well. (She’s definitely the cheeky one in the family).
It all came about when she pointed out that bobbleheads also have jiggly bits. But from a woman’s perspective, they’re all in the right places. “My face is up here, darling.”
I mean, who says father’s day can’t also be about driving home a point? And isn’t it somehow poetic to buy him an object that would point out how he objectifies women?
I can already imagine his face when he unwraps the present. We’ll have to take a picture. Then we can give him that face the next year – obviously as a custom-made bobblehead.
Hey, who said dad gets to have all the fun?