PD

For those of you who do not know my dad, Phil Durst, you have no idea what you're missing . . . or how lucky you are. He is a schlubby Jew originally from New York—all these things are apparent from his appearance—and has been repeating the same jokes for as long as I can remember. But all joking aside, he's a real treat. He spent the last week in Paris visiting me/asking me to translate really stupid jokes to my host family. We had a great time and had some amazing traditional French meals. And surprisingly, my host parents really liked him. (Not understanding many of his jokes, they remarked that his constant joking was dry and clearly of Anglo-Saxon tradition. I tried to explain that actually he just isn't funny.) Here are a few Phil Durst-stories from his trip. (I'll add more as I remember them.)

--Strolling through Montmartre one night, my dad, seeing a pedestrian walking the other direction, suddenly spun around and said loudly, "Andy?!" It was of course not Andy and the pedestrian continued walking away.

--In addition to considering himself a comedian, my dad also fancies himself an artist and would proclaim several times a day: "Eli, I thought of a great photo series idea for you." He would consistently follow this with a terrible photo series idea.

--One night we walked by a Pizza Hut with a bunch of mopeds in front that were all red and had the Pizza Hut logo printed on the side. "Do we think those are their delivery vehicles?" he inquired. (He often uses the pronoun "we" to mean "I," which can be fairly annoying, as I thought it was quite clear that those were the delivery mopeds.)

--Another PD quirk is that he loves swimming on vacation. This vacation was, of course, no different, despite the fact that it was 50 degrees outside. My host family was a little surprised that my dad wanted to spend his time in Paris in a pool.

--He tried to get me to translate the word "crypt keeper," which I did not know, so that he could make one of his standard jokes that my mom is old and mean. Sarcasm doesn't always translate well, especially when you don't speak a word of the language, and I think my host family was a little shocked by the fact that he was calling his wife old and mean.

But like I said, we had a great time and I'm really glad he came to visit. Love you, dad.