A Proud Parent

So Vancouver City Park Board Commissioner Constance Barnes thinks her father would be “proud” after driving her car into the side of a house while intoxicated, the resulting DUI charge and her sobbing admission of guilt and alcoholism? That got me to thinking about of a number of things I’ve done during my life that my father would have been exceedingly proud of:

• Walking out on a bad date and leaving her with the restaurant bill (drinks only…it didn’t last long enough to order food)
• Discovering my fly was open during an entire job interview
• Watering my lawn on a few ‘no watering’ days
• Returning a suit after wearing it to a weekend wedding and reception (the cake and bridesmaid phone number in the breast pocket didn’t help. Damn those crafty suit salesmen!)
• Giving cell phone users dirty looks on the Westcoast Express
• Blaming an unflushed toilet on a fellow employee (that was years ago but I still regret that one)
• Dropping napalm on the inhabitants of a Vietnamese village (I didn’t actually do that but he would have been proud, right?)

Ms. Barnes is also responsible for another accident in 1976 which left her passenger permanently confined to a wheelchair. She was 17 at the time and her father was forced to declare personal bankruptcy as a result of her passenger’s $440,000 lawsuit. I wonder how proud her father was of Constance for that one? I’m guessing not that much.