His diet is thanks to Maria, his (new) wife, who he says is keeping him young and happy—implying that my mom was the wife who made him old and miserable. Which is probably true.

“What’ll it be, baby?” he asked me, so that he could order for me, telling the waitress, “My associate would like…”

My father thinks that’s funny.

And maybe it was when I was three. Ha-ha, a three-year-old associate.

But that wasn’t what I hated. What I hated was that he called me baby. Not because it was such an awful nickname, but because I suspect he calls me baby when it’s too much trouble to remember that my name is Sarah. Sarah, Sarah, Sarah, Sarah, Sarah!!!!!

I wasn’t always this cranky on our Sunday morning father-daughter outings. I think I was on extra edge this time because sooner or later I was going to have to tell him about my adventures in cheatery.

La.

The waitress brought my father’s juice. He took a long drink, then, Ding! Round one, he comes out swinging: “So your mother says you have a tale to tell?”

“Once upon a time,” I said in a storytelling tone, “a person brought me a copy of what I hoped were the answers to my geography midterm…” (A smiling right hook.)

As he listened, my father nodded and carefully used his knife to push chunks of bagel slopped in gooey egg onto his fork. He did look a little surprised to hear that I’d cheated. He peered over his glasses at me, and held his fork up as if he wanted to speak, but then resumed eating and nodded at me to continue.

Overall, he seemed only mildly interested until I got to the part about not telling where I got the test. “You refused the principal?” he asked, perking up.

“I refused the principal on principle,” I punned. Then I sat back to wait for the tide. The tide of lawyer-speak. It came right on cue.

My father dabbed his lips with his napkin, leaned toward me, and chuckled, “Ha! Civil contempt! Do you know what that is, baby?”

I shook my head.

“That’s having the keys to your jail cell in your own pocket! See, unlike a criminal doing a proscribed block of time, you, my dear, can trade your information for your freedom any time you like.”

“But that would be snitching,” I reminded him.

“Snitching is official policy in the Army,” he said, smiling. “In fact, our own military believes that if you are aware of someone’s wrongdoing and you fail to report it, you become as guilty as they are. Therefore, it’s a crime not to snitch! Grounds for expulsion, in fact.”

“Yeah, but I thought it was wimpy to rat on people,” I said.