Who's Making Front Page News? - BIG FAMILY little income

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“Hi, Dad,” I said into the phone. “Is Mum home yet?”

“No,” he said. “What’s going on? This is the third time you’ve called. Has the cat got out?”

He was referring to our new kitten, Minion.

“No,” I told him. “Although you might say the cat’s out of the bag. I’ll call you back.”

The reason I was calling, and being a little coy, started when a girl at work asked if I’d seen the paper today. I hadn’t, but soon had one in my hands which prompted a call to my mother.

“Have you seen the paper today?” I asked her.

“No,” said my mum. “Why? Are you in it again?”

“No me,” I said. “But your husband is.”

“Oh, no,” she said. “What’s he done this time?”

Not him. Me.

A few days ago Tracey discovered a Facebook page called Gympie’s Worst Car Parkers.

“You’re so going to end up on here,” she told me.

“So’s my dad,” I told her. And within minutes he was. Mainly because I went and uploaded a photo of his brilliant effort last year just as quick as I could locate it in my hard drive from a post.

“He’ll kill you!” said the girls at work when they saw the Facebook posting, to which I added the comment ‘and to be fair, he knew he was outside the lines’ for a chuckle.

“He’ll never know,” I assured them.

But it seems possible someone at the Gympie Times reads my Facebook page too, because next thing you know that photo was on their front page.

“He’ll kill you!” the girls at work said again.

“Nah,” I told them. “He’ll be proud as punch he’s made the paper. We’re not dealing with a normal person here. He’s my dad. He’s like me. And where do you think I get it. Besides,” I added, “it’s not really a bad park. It’s more an accident.”

So my mum had raced out to buy the paper so she could either A) hide it from Dad and hope he didn’t buy his own later, or B) wave it in his face and laugh.

She went with B). She’s my mother, slightly more normal but essentially like me too.

And my dad?

He’s loving his moment in the spotlight and is grinning like a Cheshire Cat.