The things you learn from sarcastic parents

It was Christmas 2013, not the actual day, but the season. As in any normal day I was hanging out in my kitchen with my mom, a place my family tends to gather. Due to the season my mom was gnarling down on a candy cane she’d stolen from the tree. My dad now enters the picture and looks at my mom.

“You want to lick my pink candy cane,” are the first words I’ve heard my dad say all day.

I have grown up with a pair of the most disgusting, in-love, gross, inappropriate, sarcastic, PDA-ing parents. The kind of things I hear on a daily basis, the kind of things I see – they are things no child should have to hear and see their parents do. These are also things I’m thankful for.

In seventh grade I was at a friend’s house and her parents broke into a huge argument. We sat in the living room while the two adult screamed profanities at each other. In that moment I realized how lucky I was to have parents who enjoyed each other’s company: Parents who fondled each other in public, who constantly teased and poked fun at me, parents who loved laughing (at their children).

My parents taught me many things by being the way they are.

Sharing every embarrassing thing that happens to you brings people closer together. Imagine having a conversation with your mom about how you queefed in yoga and everyone thought it was a fart but you weren’t about to say it wasn’t. I bet you wouldn’t dream of that kind of conversation with a parent – fortunately, I don’t have to dream about that conversation because it’s already happened. In the end, my mom and I had a great laugh and started sharing all the best fart stories we’ve built up over the years.

Groping your significant other in the kitchen makes food taste better. Why? Because now there is love and passion in the cooking. At first, when I was 10, I would tell my dad he was gross every time he grabbed my mom’s butt while she cooked; now it warms my heart.

If I can ever be married for twenty-plus years and still want to come home to my husband and grope him in the kitchen while he slaves over my meal, I just know that’s love. So many parents never show each other affection in front of their kids. How do your kids know you actually like each other? And how will those kids show their significant other’s affection in their own future?

Saying completely inappropriate things about sex in front of your children is gross, but they really won’t understand it until they’re older, and at that point it just gets fun.

“Hey Michelle, will you help me find my glasses,” is one of my dad’s favorite lines, considering his glasses are 100 percent of the time on his head.

Now that I’m older, I’ve heard too many of these lines and give a response similar to the look you would get from Wednesday Adams. Another favorite of his is saying goodbye to me in the form of “No glove no love, if he ain’t got a rubber treat him like a brother, and don’t be silly protect your willy.” Really the only time he uses this form of goodbye is when I leave the house with a boy. At a younger age I would turn radish red and practically sprint to the car for a quick getaway. Now, this goodbye sends laughs through the air. No date expects this kind of parental goodbye and the guys’ reactions are far greater than my own.

Bringing friends home alleviates me from the brunt of my parents’ humor. Rather than having jokes laughed at my expense, I get to sit back and laugh at my friends as my dad berates them for, say, having pink hair and a nose ring.

At the end of the day, I can count on silly conversation in the kitchen making fun of someone or another. I can count on butt gropes and inappropriate horizontal-mambo comments. I know there will be laughs and giggles and my parents will leave having one more story in their memorized embarrassing-moments-of-Ivy file.

My family is close, we laugh at each other and we love each other and I wouldn’t give them up for the world… but, maybe, for a few billion dollars or super powers of my choosing.