Monday, July 7, 2008

My Daughter

My daughter is terribly ugly, which is fine. The trouble is that I have to look at her a good deal. There are, for instance, things that she participates in that I am often forced to attend, and then there are the suppers my wife insists I be present for nearly every evening of the week, and worst of all there are the weekends spent at home. I have tried adopting myriad avocations that might keep me from my home (and thus my daughter) on these interminable sojourns from work, but they are often even more tedious than admiring my daughter’s face is painful.

I suppose it isn’t the worst thing in the world for a man to have an ugly daughter. He need not worry about the things a father with even a mildly attractive daughter must (i.e. other men, &c.), and he need not fear giving in to temptation (a father has a good deal of power to wield over his young daughter, and were one to have an attractive daughter, it would no doubt be difficult to curb all abuses of such power). In any case it isn’t the worst thing imaginable, though it is unpleasant to have to confront such an ugly creature so very, very often.

Also it’s embarrassing, and I fear it reflects poorly on my own irreproachable self. Have I done something to deserve a daughter this ugly? Is there some abomination in my past equal to that of my daughter’s face? Or worse, am I myself ugly? I know the latter cannot be true, for I have often been complimented on my own fine looks, which means that perhaps my daughter is a result of some former (heinous) sin of mine. If so, dearest daughter, I do apologize, though it is hard for me to imagine what I could have done that would have been that bad. Instead, daughter dearest, I would like to here suggest that perhaps, just perhaps, your mother’s history be scrutinized a bit more thoroughly if you have any interest in discovering the true pedigree of your hideousness.

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