Dick Schmidtisms: Volume 1

I finished reading The Middle Place by Kelly Corrigan over the weekend. I really loved it. Her writing style is so simple yet eloquent and almost reads like a love story between a father and daughter. I noticed many similarities between her father and mine so this entry is dedicated to my one-of-a-kind dad.

You know when you're raised to know only one way you assume that it's the same way for everyone else? Then you get married and you're talking to your husband and you repeat some phrase you've heard a million times growing up and realize you're saying something your husband's never heard before and you sound like a 70 year old man. It didn't take me long to figure out that whenever I repeat one of my dad's zinger's, I need to preface it by saying, "As Dick Schmidt would say..."


So here are some of the Dick Schmidtisms that get the most mileage (by my dad, not me!):

1. "Shang Bah!" (He thinks it means "Great" in Chinese...we're still trying to confirm that.)
2. "Hal Doing?" (Translation: How are You Doing?)
3. In the evenings when my dad answered the phone we would cringe if a friend was calling because when they asked to speak to you, my dad would answer "Do you have an appointment?"
4. If someone asks him on the phone how he's feeling, he responds, "With my fingers."
5. Another phone favorite is to tell someone he's speaking to that they are looking well.
6. If you ask my dad if he got a haircut he might say, "No, I got all of them cut." Or he may reply, "No, I got my ears lowered."
7. If it's warm he may refer to it as "Hotter than Dutch Love."
8. If you tell him he owes you money he will tell you, "I'd rather owe it to you than cheat you out of it."

If you know my dad, you'll appreciate these. If you don't know my dad, what's not to love? And if I've missed any of your favorites, please post a comment.