family quiz

On honor of Father's Day, I put together a little quiz about my family. You know, these handsome people?



So here goes.

1. There was a piece of collage-type art in our hallway depicting an Asian woman in a kimono who may or may not have been carrying a parasol. (No, really, there was.) What candy did we think was part of this picture?

a. Snickers bars
b. Smarties
c. Swedish berries

Answer: b (Aside: Mom would have eaten the Swedish berries.)

2. Homemade spaghetti in our house was also known as:

a. happy noodle casserole delight
b. worm soup
c. Catelli
d. pizza

Answer: c (although I seem to be the only child in the family to remember this fact)

2(a). What did Mom make us wear when we ate the aforementioned homemade spaghetti?

a. stocking caps
b. our Easter dresses
c. giant smocks that zipped up the back
d. a tarp

Answer: c (I think Mom also sometimes wore these to make bread?)

3. What sound did we wake up to most Saturday mornings?

a. A vacuum cleaner, usually accompanied by Dad's voice telling us to get up, because Saturday was housework day in our house
b. A chainsaw, because Dick Hanrahan chopped more firewood than any other man in history
c. Seagulls
d. all of the above, because LITTLE BAY THINKS SLEEP IS FOR THE WEAK

Answer: d (which is why to this day all three of us require two cups of coffee to form a coherent thought before 8 a.m.)

4. The brown lamps in our living room weighed:

a. 2-3 pounds each
b. 4-5 pounds each
c. over 5,000 pounds each

Answer: c

5. In order to reach the up-high dishes, we would:

a. stand on each other's shoulders
b. pull out the bottom drawer and use it as a step
c. fashion an elaborate pulley system
d. jump like the dickens

Answer: b, until the drawer broke, then d

6. Which one of us needed Mom to watch out her bedroom window when she was running the fifty yards from Agnes's house to our house because she was terrified of coming home by herself?

a. Dawn
b. Holly
c. Erin
d. Come on, none of us are that big of a wuss

Answer: c

7. What did we lose in the living room one time after throwing it around at each other for a half an hour when Mom and Dad weren't home?

a. some loose change
b. a kitten
c. a ball of homemade bread dough
d. my dignity

Answer: c (Days later, Mom found a moldy mystery object behind the TV, in what I believe was an unrelated incident.)

8. If Dad wasn't home on a weekend day, we could generally find him:

a. at Tom and Clo's
b. out in the shop
c. in Billy's garage
d. any of the above

Answer: d

9. What was the name of the teddy bear Holly and Nancy hung from a noose in the closet one time as retaliation for something I had done to them?

a. Charlie Valentine
b. Timmy Two-Toes
c. Debbie Gibson
d. Franknfintanfarrell

Answer: a (Carl had given him to me for Valentine's Day one time. And don't worry, I was able to save him in time.)

10. Where was the strangest place one of our cats ever had kittens?

a. under the house
b. in a box in the porch
c. on Dawn's bed

Answer: c (she likely became a vet to save other people and their comforters from the same fate)

11. What did we eat for supper after church most Saturdays?

a. Catelli (oh, sorry, "homemade spaghetti")
b. chicken and chips
c. potatoes and drawn butter
d. rashers

Answer: b

12. How did we know Dad was in church on Saturday evenings?

a. He announced his arrival on the priest's microphone
b. Nancy would play the Imperial March on the organ
c. He has the most distinctive cough ever
d. the smell

Answer: c

13. Who did I repeatedly threaten by telling them my dad would come beat them up?

a. Everyone who was ever mean to me
b. No one

Answer: a

14. What was the best thing about our coffee table?

a. its ability to hold coffee
b. how when we were "cleaning the living room" we could just jam everything into the cabinet thing and force the door shut
c. the ease of transforming it into a Little People mansion
d. how well it matched the black vinyl couch and velvet painting

Answer(s): b and c

15. What was the best part of Dad having a workshop in the house?

a. pretending that circuit boards were tiny cities
b. loud and terrifying power tools
c. watching him solder things which is like MAGIC
d. being called upon to "test" Nintendos after he fixed them
e. All of the above EXCEPT B

Answer: e


Happy Father's Day, Dad! And by the way, look at how calm you were before you had children:



(OK I JUST NOTICED THE PICTURE ON THE WALL BEHIND YOU IN THIS PHOTO. If you could just scoot a little to the right, I could totally verify the answer to question #1.)