For the past 365 days, we’ve recounted some wonderful things about daddy. But, I’d be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge a few of his “PITA” (Pain In The Ass, as he liked to say) qualities.

First things first, dad was occasionally hard to please…particularly at restaurants. He loved a juicy medium-rare steak. If it was not cooked to perfection, he’d send it back much to my chagrin. I’m sure he unwittingly digested quite a bit of spit as a result of his many complaints.

On a similar note, daddy hated tomatoes. He was loosely allergic and would swell with some hives if he ingested them. I have a vivid memory of us ordering at the Wendy’s on Hull Street. He checked his burger and found tomatoes, despite his “no tomatoes” request. He watched as they took his burger to the side and scraped the tomatoes into the garbage before reassembling. If only that employee knew the mistake he had just made. Naturally, daddy went off. He first lectured the employee and his manager about how this was bad practice. He then proceeded to harshly explain that he requested tomatoes due to an allergy. He even went so far as to say, “I’ll see your ass in court!” (a favorite threat of his). By the end of the ordeal, they had comped the meal.

Another vivid mad-dad memory I have is when he WENT OFF on the VW Passat Service folks. He had brought in his car for maintenance and they needed to service the brakes. Some poor (and admittedly careless) schmuck forgot to reconnect the brakes, and dad, with Joelle and me in tow, flew down the parking lot hill into Midlothian Turnpike when it came time to leave the dealership. By some miracle, there was a lull in traffic and we emerged unscathed. Livid, daddy went back to the Service Department to rip them a new one. Of course this time, I can’t say I blame him.

In short — whether it was calling out my first grade teacher for telling me I had incorrectly memorized my address (she thought we lived in Bon Air for some reason), calling the police on reckless drivers, or filing consumer complains — daddy had zero problem with confronting people and making a scene.