When my daughter was about 18 months old, we would take daily trips to the local Blockbuster to rent movies because we're bad, bad Netflix returners and apparently the concept of "Watch it, Wrap It, Put It In The Mailbox, And New One Comes" is just way beyond our grasp.
As we wandered around the outer isles looking for new releases, my daughter's attention was immediately drawn to The Punisher DVD. At first I wondered what little girl in her right mind would be attracted to such a thing, but then I realized that it was the skull on the cover, not the tall, scary man holding the AK47 - at least I was hoping. She picked it off the shelf and ran over to me in a fit of glee, shouting "Look Mama! Just like daddy! It is daddy!" Her father is covered in tattoos, many of them skull or skull related, and she couldn't contain her excitement when she had had mentally linked together the skull on the movie and the skulls on his arms.

There were two men standing on either side of us; both had looks on their face that I found hard to distinguish. Was it confusion? Concern? Disdain? Or was it just that dumbfounded, pissed off look that everyone gets when standing in Blockbuster that says, I said I was going to stop coming here 36 visits ago when they still had nothing to rent. Why the hell am I back here? Now I have to pick between Cool As Ice or Krush Groove. Neither one of these are going to get me laid.

But she wouldn't stop announcing to the store that her daddy was a skull and at this point, it was causing a bit of a scene. In order to calm her the hell down, I had to agree. "Yes! Yes! It really is Daddy! Okay? Happy now? Your father is a skull."

Apparently, it did make her happy because she put the movie down and we decided on a different one. (Krush Groove, if you must know. We just weren't feeling the Vanilla Ice vibe that night, as I don't think anyone has since 1991.)

As I was paying for the rental, my daughter noticed that, lucky us, The Punisher was for sale and on display. Of course, the display was gigantic and now the man that was on the cover of the movie was life-size and wearing a skull T-Shirt and she could not be convinced that this man was not her father. She immediately ran over to the display and began touching and hugging it. "It's daddy again, mama! Look!"

The cashier was already confused enough. He became completely dumbfounded when I once again had to agree with her that yes, it was her father, in order to calm her down.

"Was your husband The Punisher for Halloween or something?" he asked.

"No," I responded, "he's a skull. Duh."

My daughter, without skipping a beat, chimed in with, "Yeah! My daddy's a skull!"

I couldn't tell if he wanted to laugh or call security on us.

RSM apparently has a thing for guys who remind her of Thomas Jane.

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