The payback begins

When I was a boy the whole family ended up watching a documentary about gorillas. According to the documentary, the dominant male in the flock was called Silverback because of the gray fur running down his back. He was a big, surly gorilla.

So naturally the comparison with the gray hair down my father’s back made itself, and I tormented him for years by calling him Silverback and making amusing gorilla noises. Naturally.

Today we were talking around the dinner table, and somehow we got on to the subject of monkeys, and I wanted to sneak in a bit of early evolution thinking by pointing out that we humans are part of the great African apes, and that gorillas are in a way of speaking our cousins.

Andrea thinks for a while, then says, “Hey, dad! You’re a gorilla! Because you’re big and fat!”

I just can’t wait until she catches on to the gray back hair…

Anyway, sorry Dad.