tom petty gets 75% of the credit for this father's day

So I've got a confession to make. I planned to let Father's Day cruise right on by around here. Because - and here's where I break some of your hearts - I can be a real bitch. I dwelled on letting it go unrecognized for days (weeks...it was totally weeks) with the sense of "Ha! I'll just show you!" swirling around in my brain, letting it bump into all the other stuff that's up there, primarily "Hmmm...I wonder if we have any ice cream left" and "Why are we watching this, why are we watching this, why are we watching this....I wonder if we have any ice cream left."

"Why you gotta be such a little bitch?" you're probably wondering, and if so, I'd like us both to take a step back now and rethink this label now that I've slapped it on myself. Because listen, I'm not perfect, but I'm certainly not a bitch, either. At least not a total one. However, I do have a tendency to be a wee bit petty. Eh, who am I kidding? I can sometimes be so petty that if I bumped into Tom Petty, he'd be all, "Listen, when I sang 'I won't back down,' I was talking about me, not you, lady. Take a deep breath and let it go already!" and depending on my mood, I'd probably be all, "Damn the torpedoes! It's Tom Petty!" or "Eh, screw you, Tom Petty. Don't come around here no more!"

So why was I so petty? My family totally blew off Mother's Day. COMPLETELY!! Maybe to some of you, that's not a big deal. It's just a day. Every day is Mother's Day, yada, yada, yada. Well...no. Not in my mind. Especially not in my mind that was also littered with thoughts about how they'd also blew off my birthday last fall. I KNOW! Believe me, there was no Samantha Baker and Jake Ryan meet cute atop the table at the end of either of those days. At the end of which I mentioned the lack of a spoken greeting or even a greeting card hurt my feelings.

Though I think the exact words I said were "This sucks so, so much..." And then I thought of exacting my petty revenge. Ignore it all? Feasible. Oh, but what about going passive aggressive? Totally over the top? Is it too late to hire skywriters? What kind of permits do I need to get lined up for a big top circus in the backyard? Buy him new underwear?

So yes, while I laid in bed until after 10 a.m., on Father's Day (oh, yes, I totally slept in!)(only because my Tool Man has been working the last several Sundays, including Father's Day, because triple overtime is a lusty, insatiable mistress, my friends), I twirled the ends of my sinister fake villain mustache, tapped my fingertips together in evil pondering, and perhaps cackled maniacally while thinking how I was going to play the day super cool.

Then I rolled over, closed my eyes, and prepared to dream a little bit more. Except it felt like I wasn't alone...and when I opened my eyes, I saw Tom Petty standing there next to my bed, and forget Bigfoot, people, because Tom Petty next to your bed is creepy. Then he spoke.

"Good love is hard to find...good love is hard to find..." he said.

"What's your point, Tom Petty?" I asked.

"You got lucky, babe..." he said.

"Listen, before you go any further, I found him!" I countered.

But by then, Tom's point was made loud and clear. So while rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I asked if he wouldn't mind sticking around to bust out with Here Comes My Girl for Tool Man when he got home as a special dedication, but when I opened my eyes, Tom Petty was gone and there stood my little boy, smiling and armed with a few key brownie making ingredients.

I (free fell...heh...) out of bed, got pretty for the day (and the dad around here), and over the next few hours, the boys and I baked brownies, planned a meal fit for a king, decked the couch out for a king's nap, and wrapped the gifts we'd purchased earlier in the week for my Tool Man. Their dad.

Because yes, Tom Petty or not, I'd totally caved earlier in the week on the whole passive aggressive approach to Father's Day. And not just because there weren't any greeting cards trumpeting "Now you know how it feels..." I did it because Tool Man is a damn awesome dad. That or he's a shark and the boys are tiny pilot fish who swarm around him. Or he's the sun his sons orbit around. Either way, it's not necessarily about me, it's about him. And I love that shiny shark, dammit.

But I did get him new underwear. Because what I've been folding every week is holier than the pope. And now that I've shared that with the world, I think I at least deserve a gift certificate for a couple cheap manicures next Mother's Day.

...and somewhere, Tom Petty's muttering "Yer so bad..."