Lyndsey Gillentine is a Creative Writing major at Stephen F. Austin State University. She is originally from Grand Saline, Texas. Daddy-isms
“Nacho Man” – My dad always sings Village People’s song “Macho Man” as “Nacho Man”. I had no idea it wasn’t actually Nacho Man until a couple years ago. My dad was quite amused at how long it took me to figure out.
Flascal Rats and Barstucks – As often as possible my dad loves to switch around letters words. Two of the ones he finds particularly funny, especially since he has more opportunities to use them, are Rascal Flats and Starbucks. We used to listen to a lot of Rascal Flats and now we go to Starbucks quite often. It’s become a game for us to see how talented we are at rearranging words. I’ve gotten so used to him flipping words around that occasionally I genuinely have to think for a minute about which version is right. I almost messed up really bad once when we were at Schlotzky’s for lunch. I always get cracked pepper chips with my sandwich and I was dangerously close to asking for crapped pecker chips.
“Put your wheels on” – My dad coached my softball team from T-Ball through Coach-Pitch. During the T-Ball games while my team was at bat, my dad was the coach on first base. My dad would always tell me that I was fast for my age, and once I was on first waiting for my teammate to hit the ball he would lean down to my level and ask, “You ready?”. I would nod my head, my big helmet wobbling in the process. There would be a pause as he watched my teammate swing so that I didn’t have to and could look straight ahead towards my next target, second base. I’d hear a soft crack and then my dad say, “Put your wheels on!”, and off I would go to the next base.
“How you be?” – This simple question means so many different things. It means how was your day, how are you really feeling, what can I do to make it better, and I love you. Obviously he knows the correct grammar, but this is how he’s always said it. I honestly don’t know when he first said it like this, it’s just part of his way of showing that he cares, it’s more personal than simply, “How are you.”
“BBG” – This one is my favorite. This is my name. Nobody else calls me BBG, it is only for my dad and me. I don’t even know exactly when he started to call me BBG, he just always has, but if I had to guess when it started it would be back in my T-Ball days. There were two Sydney’s on my sister’s team so to differentiate between the two, my sister was called G and the other Sydney went by her actual name. Since I’m the baby of the family, I assume that during softball I became Baby G which turned simply to BBG. Even if I’m totally wrong about how I got the nickname that doesn’t matter to me. What matters is that I have something special with my dad that is only for us.