I remember when I was the King of my castle just like it was yesterday. In fact it WAS yesterday.

Now after several months of living here my daughter has finally decided to REALLY live here, which means that she is not going to simply stay in her room and out of my way (Like I want), but that she is going to redecorate the house to suit her needs and begin putting a little of her personality into the place.

Oh yippee!

So the other day she e-mails me pictures of three different couches she wants and asks which one I think would look best in the living room. 

I of course e-mail her back and say "None of them, we don't need a couch!"

However that is not good enough and she makes me choose. So I tell her that two of her choices are fine but that the third one sucks ass.  "Okay" she says and goes out that day and buys one of them and a matching loveseat.

The night before last she tells me that she needs my help to pick the couches up and bring them home.  "Okay" I say, "no problem."  All the while thinking to myself, "See she still needs her daddy."

So yesterday I go into her room to wake her up so that we can pick up the couches together and she springs out of the bed wide awake like some sort of jack-in-the-box. (My daughter NEVER springs awake.  IN fact last week she slept for one entire day, not getting up once even to go to the bathroom.  I went in around one o'clock in the afternoon with a mirror to check if she was still breathing.  She was.)

So when she sprang up like that it startled me, and I am not embarrassed to say I took a step back. I didn't run because that would have been pathetic, but I did drop into a half assed fighting stance just in case it was a ninja or zombie in that bed  instead of my daughter. (I have been watching a lot of bad Netflix movies lately.)

Not only did she spring out of bed but she started talking a hundred miles a minute.  I could not catch all of it because it was too fast for human ears to intercept, but it went something like this:

"So much to do....had an espresso last night.....couldn't sleep.....let's go...wait I need to brush my teeth....are you ready?....I like espresso.....have you showered yet?....Let's go!...Wait did I brush my teeth yet?...Have you still NOT showered yet?.....I like espresso....need to pick up the couch....espresso...like...."

All of that took about a half second to say.  I calmly told her to settle down and I would be showered in a few minutes and we could go get the couch.

I quickly showered, and as I left the bathroom still brushing my teeth she was standing outside of the door with her coat on and bouncing from one foot to the other asking if we could go yet?  "Seriously who the hell are you?" I asked through the toothpaste in my mouth.

As we backed out of the driveway my daughter suddenly tells me that we need to go to U-Haul and rent a truck in order to bring the couches home.  So as we drove to the U-Haul place I tell her to let me do the talking because sometimes these people will try and take advantage of a young girl.

We walked in and I happened to notice that there were some cool combination locks for sale.  I swear I am only distracted for a minute or two, but when I look over my daughter is at the front counter and she is swiping her credit card and filling out the form. I walked up only to have her breeze past me and say "Come on Dad I got it."

I was left just kind of standing there feeling completely unnecessary, and wondering what in the hell just happened.

I walked outside only to find my daughter sitting behind the steering wheel. She's driving too?

As I climb into the passenger side I casually ask her if she is sure she can handle a vehicle this big and cumbersome.

Then she gives me the look.  My look.

It is the look I have practiced my entire life.,  The look that says "Do YOU have any idea just who the fuck you are talking too?"  That is MY look, I give it all of the time to shut people down, and now I am on the receiving end.

I cannot believe she stole my look!  And then she has the audacity to fling it right back at me to boot! 

"You do remember that I just drove a motor home all the way up the ALCAN from Georgia don't you?"

Actually you know what?  I kind of forgot about that for a second.

So sufficiently chastised I sat in the passenger side providing valuable driving tips that she completely ignored as we headed off we go to pick up the couch.  We arrived at the store and when we walked in I saw that the couch she bought was the only one of her choices that I did NOT want her to buy.

Now apparently she thinks I will not yell in a crowded store. Wrong!

But before I can get up a real head of steam and begin to send the locals fleeing for the door, my daughter starts to tell me how she got it on sale, and how she negotiated the price down even further, and how she saved three hundred dollars on the purchase.

"What?  Three hundred dollars?  But this is not the...but we agreed...three hundred dollars?"   I quickly realize that I've got nothing to say back. I know when I'm beat, so all I can do is to help the furniture store employees load up the couches for the trip to our house.

Once we get to the house we begin to unload the couches.  We get the first one up the stairs to the front door and BAM!  It will not go through. Hah!  I knew there would be a problem.

So I start my rant about if only she would have listened to me and bought the couches that I approved instead of some oversized ugly ass furniture like this we would not have to load it up and take it right back to where we got it, but nooo, she never listens to her father even though he.....

"Dad! Why don't we try turning it and seeing if we can work it in at an angle?"

Yep you guessed it, that worked perfectly. Crap, and I had such a good rant going.

We got both of the couches into the living room and I was finally able to get a good look at them in the sunlight.  You know what?  They were not really all that hideous.

After we returned the U-Haul (And yes my daughter got a good deal and did not even drive it far enough to have to buy gas for it.), she asked if we could stop by Fred Meyers and buy some more things for her to spruce up the house.

Aha!  So THIS is where she gets me to spend a bunch of my money on things I don't want in my house, I thought.

"Look" I said, "I will drive you to the store, but don't think I am going to spend a bunch of my money on things that I don't think are necessary just because you want to them."  Ha, I certainly told her.

I looked over and saw that same look of mine staring back at me again! "Did I ask you to buy anything?" She said.

"Well, no but.."

"Didn't I pay for the U-Haul?"

"Well yes but..."

"Didn't I figure out how  the get the couches through the door when YOU wanted to just give up?"

"Well I never said I was exactly giv..."

"Don't worry DAD, I will handle it.  Geez!"

"Sorry" I said. In order to make it up to her I offered to buy her a coffee.  The one from the night before had started to wear off so she agreed.  She ended up choosing a Peppermint Mocha with, and I quote, "As much peppermint as humanly possible."

I swear in three sips she was bounding around the store like Tigger from the Winnie the Pooh stories.

We chose a cart and began to move through the store.  I found a Blue Ray DVD that I wanted and threw it into the cart exclaiming to everybody within earshot that IT was all I was buying today. As we progressed through Fred Meyers my daughter's verbal interactions with me began to speed up.  Soon she was barely coherent and talking so fast that all I could do was nod my head once in awhile to let her know I was paying attention.

I was trying to watch carefully to make sure she did not put too many expensive things into the cart because I knew she did not have a great deal of money left.  But my eyes started to dry out and I had to blink.  When I did I noticed that three more items had miraculously found their way into our shopping cart.  What's more I believe the three things came from three entirely different areas of the store.  I literally had no idea how she got them into the cart so damn fast.

I tried to ask her, but now she was in such a caffeine induced state of hyperactivity that her words were coming so fast they gave my eardrums wind burn.

The cart was soon full and so we decided to head to the check out so I could buy my Blue Ray movie and she could apparently spend what was left of her life savings.

We went to the U-Scan and I scanned my Blue Ray movie and got out my wallet to pay, but then my daughter reached over and scanned one of her items on my scanner too. WTF?

When I looked over she said "Remember?  Over there by the shelves you said you would buy this for me?"

'What?  No I didn't."

"Yes you did, remember I said I really wanted it, but could not afford it, and when I asked if you would buy it instead you nodded yes."

Oh crap!  Was THAT what she was saying?

"Look honey you cannot hold me accountable for anything I nodded to back there, hell only dolphins and fruit bats could make out what you were saying."

"Dad!  People are waiting for us, and I really need these shelves because your house does not have enough closet space for all of my stuff! Please!"  I knew I was being scammed but she had turned on her Bambi eyes and I was powerless to argue.  As it turned out I had apparently nodded quite a few times and ended up buying most of the things in the cart.

Long story short, my Blue Ray movie ended up costing me $159.83.  That better be one hell of a good movie!

Mental note for the future, do NOT buy daughter anymore mochas, and do not nod your head to anything that you do not see in writing!

P.S. Before I went to bed last night I caught my daughter in my bedroom with a measuring tape.  When I asked her what the hell she was doing she said she was just seeeing how much extra space there was in my room compared to her room and suggested that it might be a good idea if we switched because she could really use the extra space that I have in my master bed and bathroom.

"This is MY house!" I explained defensivly. "I pay the bills, and MY name is on the mortgage. And that means I get the biggest room and most luxurious bathroom. Got it?"

"It was just an idea." She said, and then smiled in that way she smiles right before she totally gets her way.

Oh god, she is the devil!

I slept with my door locked last night.

Here she is with what I THOUGHT would be the most expensive thing I would be buying for her.

Looks innocent doesn't she?  Yeah, I have been known to fall for that too.

Update:

Since you demanded it.  Behold, the couch!