Throughout my childhood, I achieved numerous accolades in the hopes of garnering my father’s attention. I won the spelling bees, brought home a silver medal in Olympic Skiing, and even sold the most holiday wrapping paper out of anyone in my 2nd grade class. But after years of failed attempts, I’d had enough. There was only one option left: editing myself into M*A*S*H re-runs so that my dad would finally look at me.
If there’s one thing to know about my dad, it’s that nothing gets between him and a M*A*S*H re-run. Unlike all of my softball games ages nine to fourteen, he won’t miss it.
When editing yourself into an episode of M*A*S*H to get your father’s attention for one fucking minute, you don’t even have to do a good job! I used iMovie and a clip from YouTube and my dad was none the wiser.
The effect was immediate and better than I dreamed of. “Why didn’t you tell me you know Alan Alda?” My dad asked.
It was the first time he’d ever looked at me, and all I had to do was record myself in the background of this 1970s TV show!
There are, of course, downsides to this plan. I’m thousands of dollars in debt due to the authentic Korean War Army costumes I bought on E-Bay, and I’ve been on the phone with IMDB for days begging them to add me to the show’s cast list, but it was all worth it!
Now my dad brags about me and my TV career to his co-workers. Their responses are usually, “Wait, what?” and “Steve, that doesn’t makes sense,” but as long as my dad believes it, we both couldn’t be happier.
If you’ve also been trying to get your father’s attention for as long as you can remember, then stop reading this article and go edit yourself into a M*A*S*H re-run. And if that doesn’t work, then I don’t know, try Mad Men!
