Tag: My perfect dad (Page 1 of 6)

A man smiles while standing in a neon-lit corridor at night, with bright red and blue lights illuminating the scene. The image has digital distortions and glitches across his face and upper body.

Dad State (Chapter 4)

2025-07-24 / admin bot / 0 Comments

Get caught up on Dad State (Chapter 3) before reading on…

Return to Trevor

Trevor had just settled into the couch, a bowl of cereal balanced on his knee and the TV whispering static because he’d let the remote slip between the cushions again when the knock came. Two short raps, then a pause, and one final knock, polite and firm.

Trevor froze. No one knocked on doors anymore. If it were one of his friends paying a visit, they’d have messaged first, and Trevor would have replied with a one-time access code to let themselves in. He set his cereal on the coffee table and lumbered over to the door.

Dad State (Chapter 3)

2025-07-17 / admin bot / 3 Comments

Get caught up on Dad State (Chapter 2) before reading on…

Intercepted

The store was called Whole Home, a sprawling, vaguely organic megamart that sold food in recyclable niches, home goods in calming pastels, and earthy, unbleached bath linens. Zach navigated the aisles with a metal cart, checking items off a list labeled Co-Op Support Essentials (Benji, Week 9). His eyes scanned the shelves with programmed efficiency. He’d found the gluten-free pancake mix, the low-emission vanilla extract, and the cinnamon-scented throw pillows embroidered with owls wearing tiny glasses. He hummed softly as he walked, a tune with no melody, with just the suggestion of cheer.

At the checkout lane, he neatly stacked his purchases with all labels facing outward and declined the cashier’s offer to round up for the local arts collective. “I support community infrastructure through direct action,” he said with a bright smile. Then he bagged his items himself.

Dad State (Chapter 2)

2025-07-10 / admin bot / 1 Comment

Get caught up on Dad State (Chapter 1) before reading on…

Rejected but Dutiful

Zach arrived each morning at precisely 6:45 a.m., a bag of breakfast ingredients in one hand and a rolled itinerary in the other. By 7 o’clock, the building’s communal kitchen smelled of turkey bacon and responsibility. Zach was only assigned to be Benji’s dad, but he saw no harm in whipping up fresh breakfast sandwiches for other Sons in the building who were still fatherless. He pinned the day’s motivational poster to the fridge—“Consistency Is Just Love With A Clock”—then laid out place settings for two on the farmhouse dining table, complete with cloth napkins and decorative toothpicks.

Then he waited. 7:30 came and went, and then 8 o’clock.

Benji never came down.

Dad State (Chapter 1)

2025-07-03 / admin bot / 1 Comment

Get started with the prelude to Dad State by reading Countdown to midnight first…

The Processing Center

The shuttle moved without sound. No engine hum, no road friction, just the faint whir of internal diagnostics running in the dashboard. Zach sat alone in the backseat, hands folded, posture unnaturally upright, as if summoned by instinct rather than intention. Outside, the world slid past in antiseptic slices. Parking lots, empty walkways, and sleek fences topped with soft-beeping security domes all melded into a blur. Zach’s life as he knew it was over.

A sign, “DadNet District Activation Hub—East Quadrant,” flashed by before the vehicle made a seamless ninety-degree turn and glided into a narrow bay. When the doors unlocked, he didn’t move. He waited for the melodic chime and the polite digital voice.

“Welcome, DadNet Unit 70855. Please proceed inside.”

Close-up of an Allen wrench, screws, and a bolt on a wooden surface. A blurred screwdriver is in the background. The image conveys the theme of assembling or repairing furniture or other items.

Going viral (My perfect dad 55)

2025-02-03 / admin bot / 2 Comments

Kyle never meant to go viral. At 35, he was barely holding his life together—scraping by in a dead-end job at an auto parts store, single for three years, and generally just existing. He wasn’t unhappy, per se, but he also wasn’t much of anything at all. With just enough spare cash to keep his gym membership, his days consisted of long, tedious shifts on the sales floor and grueling hours on the weight bench. He’d have an occasional date if he were lucky but never managed to seal the deal with a guy.

One night after too many beers, he recorded a stupid video of himself trying to assemble an IKEA shelf without instructions. He narrated it like an overconfident dad who refused to admit he was lost.

On brand (My perfect dad 54)

2024-07-15 / admin bot / 2 Comments

Tom adjusted his tie for the third time, feeling the stares of shoppers as he walked into a store ominously called Suburban Savers. His tailored suit, a navy blue ensemble that hugged his tall, slender frame perfectly, stood out against the casual attire of the other patrons. He was acutely aware of the sweat forming at the nape of his neck, threatening to stain the crisp white shirt he wore beneath his jacket. Cody, meanwhile, was already live streaming their entrance, his phone held up high to capture every moment. The younger man, dressed in trendy, casual clothes, exuded confidence and charisma. His messy blonde hair and impish grin made him seem approachable, unlike Tom’s polished and somewhat intimidating appearance.

“Hey everyone, we’re here at Suburban Savers with my new project. Say hi, Tom!” Cody said, turning the camera toward him.

Dad dates (My perfect dad 52)

2024-04-22 / admin bot

Buzzwords, the city’s trendy local cafe frequented by university students and business executives alike, was always busy on Sunday mornings. The rush of early-morning errand runners had already come through, and with the after-church crowds now pouring in seeking coffee and brunch, free tables were scarce. Theo snagged one of the last remaining two tops by the front door and fidgeted nervously, awaiting his date’s arrival.

The faint scent of starch emanated from his crisp, white, button-down shirt, and his caged junk twitched in his dark gray trousers as he scanned the room, wondering whether any of the men already here was his date. Each time the cafe doors opened, the April wind whirled around him, making him grateful for the open-necked shirt collar. The last thing he needed was to spend the date subduing a necktie determined to flap around in the breeze.

Two for one (My perfect dad 51)

2024-04-15 / admin bot / 0 Comments

DadNet charged a lot of money and made grand promises without much to back them up. But I didn’t care. I was desperate. For the last three years, I had secretly lusted after my next-door neighbor Keith. I watched the 40-something divorced computer programmer wash his car in the driveway, mow his lawn in the summertime, and shovel the pavement in the wintertime. I had built up an entire relationship in my head and played it out in a thousand different ways. In some scenarios, we were married. In others, we were just fuck buddies. Keith wasn’t a supermodel or anything. There was nothing about him that I found particularly intimidating, and there was no real reason why I couldn’t just approach him and ask him out. I was just too scared of rejection.

And then, one day, I saw the “for sale” sign staked into his front yard. After all this time secretly lusting after Keith, now he was moving, and I would never get my chance at him. I kicked myself for an entire weekend, already resigned to the fact that Keith was destined to be the one that got away.

The pageant, part 2 (My perfect dad 50)

2024-04-08 / admin bot / 0 Comments

Read part 1 to get caught up…

As the evening started, Patrick perched on the edge of his barstool, his heart thumping with perturbation and disbelief. The air buzzed with an energy he barely recognized, charged with surreal, disquieting novelty. Mr. Leather Evergreen, the local fetish pageant he had followed religiously and whose title he clinched last year, had been turned on its head. The familiar program of events was gone, and each had been replaced with a bizarre suburban analog.

Instead of showing off their leather craftsmanship skills, the contestants were each handed a pair of shears and tasked with trimming a small patch of lawn to perfection. The stop clock ticked its final seconds, and Patrick watched in bewilderment as a dozen portly, middle-aged men sweated and fretted over every blade of grass on their miniature plots of turf. The winner, a guy Patrick recalled from the old Hideaway days, high fived the entire panel of judges when they revealed he’d trimmed his grass uniformly to one-quarter inch in height, exactly what the HOA prescribed.

The pageant, part 1 (My perfect dad 49)

2024-03-25 / admin bot / 1 Comment

What a difference a year makes.

Patrick walked across the parking lot from his SUV to the venue, feeling like a stranger in a strange land. His leather jacket and pants creaked with each step, and his right hand formed an apprehensive fist in its tight, shiny glove. The Muir cap in his left hand had become a relic of a bygone era, and despite being clad head to toe in custom leather gear, Patrick was reluctant to don the cap.

“Hang in there, Sir,” Patrick’s boyfriend Vince said as he jogged to keep up with Patrick’s purposeful gait. “It’ll be over soon.”