Welcome to feis dad

Hello, my name is Matt. I have a daughter ... no, make that two daughters ... who LOVE Irish Dance.

There. I admitted it. I’ve come clean.

It's the first step in recognizing I have a problem.

Did I say problem? Well, maybe that’s not quite right.

It’s more like a crisis of epic proportions.

If you’ve got a daughter in novice, prizewinner or championship, you know what I mean. Don’t worry, if you’re just starting this ride, you’ll find out soon enough.

If you don't know what a feis is. you're on the wrong blog. If you do know what a feis is and like it, you're on the wrong blog. If the thought of going to a feis makes you feel queasy, you're in the right place.

So, you're supposed to be here, now what?

Take a look at my first post, titled: Feis Dad Syndrome.

See if you've developed this terrible condition.

If you've got it, don't despair. There is help. I may not offer any right now, but don't lose hope, I'll get to it eventually.

Above all, I am looking forward to your comments, funny stories and helpful suggestions.

Thanks for joining me.

-- feis dad

Blog Posts

The following are posts. Please read, laugh and comment.

-feis dad

Sunday, June 29, 2008

Budgeting for a solo dress

It is time.

The end is near.

Time to pay the piper.

The grim reaper is knocking on your door.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

What do all these clichés have in common?

They’ve all just popped into your head since your wife told you that it’s TIME TO BUY THE DREADED “SOLO DRESS” (not to be confused with the less expensive—but still outrageously expensive—class dress).

You push the thoughts of doom and world ending catastrophes aside and take a deep breath.

“No problem,” you say to yourself. “It’s just a dress.”

Two recommendations: One, stop talking to yourself. Two, get real—it’s not your typical off-the-shelf dress.

Your wife excitedly shows you a picture of the “beautiful” dress.

You scream.

It’s ten times more hideous than anything you’ve ever seen in Mervyns. Covered in gaudy sequins and neon colors, it’s so bright that it makes the Las Vegas strip look like a flashlight with half dead batteries.

How much could a dress like that cost? Fifty bucks. A hundred at most. Surely, no one would pay more than that.

Wrong answer! And wrong question.

The right answer is: You. Since you’re the sucker who is going to shell out more money than your daughter’s braces, a new minivan and America’s latest stealth fighter combined. All for a dress that your daughter might actually wear three times before she outgrows it.

And the right question? How can a dress cost $3000? Or, more appropriately, what bank am I going to rob to pay for the darn thing?

The answers?

I have no #&%$ing idea, and the bank at the corner of Main and Fifth looks like an easy hit to me.

I’m sorry, let me be serious for a moment.

Believe me, I’ve scoped it out. The guards do look sleepy and there’s an alley out back for your get-away car.

A bank job a little too drastic for you right now? Don’t worry, by the time your little beginner II dancer moves into prize winner, it won’t be. In the meantime, I’ve compiled a few suggestions to help you out. They may not keep you from serving some jail time, but given the number of feis’ in your future, that may not be a bad thing.

Feis dad suggestions on how to afford a solo dress:

1. Get a second job, re-mortgage the house, sell anything of value and take up singing for loose change at the entrances to subway stations.

There, that’s it.

Good luck.

No, I’m such a kidder. I do have some other ideas, but they aren’t as easy as those listed above.

2. Sell a body part. Everyone wants American made body parts. I hear kidneys are the rage in China nowadays. And you’ve got two. Do you really need a spare? You can also sell your liver, but this has a few drawbacks. One, if you’ve been a feis dad for a while, it’s probably not worth much due to the large amount of alcohol induced trauma, and two, you’ll die.

3. Buy used. Why buy a new dress for $3000, when you can pick up a used one for $2995? You can buy yourself a combo meal at McDonald’s with the five bucks you save. Savor it, it’ll be the last time you can afford to eat out at a “nice place” for a few years.

4. Make the dress yourself. Pick up some fabric on clearance and sew, sew, sew. It really doesn’t matter (at least to you) that you don’t actually know how to sew, you (being a typical feis dad) won’t be able to tell the difference from your horrific creation to one of those “beautiful” custom made dresses. The bad news is, your wife and daughter and every other female in the Irish Dance Mafia will now hate you and your life will be measured in minutes.

5. Shun the tradition. Refuse to waste your money on a solo dress. Make your daughter wear something a little more fashionable like … oh, I don’t know … a pair of grey sweats and a New England Patriots jersey. Be prepared for some push back if you go this route. Although you will be the hero of all the other feis dads out there, you will also be sleeping on the couch for the next century and your daughter will never send you a Father’s Day card again. Ever.

6. Time share a dress. If your dance academy is large, this may be a viable option. Try to get ten or more feis dads to “go in” on a solo dress, then everyone could share it during a feis. Yes, it may be a hassle to change out of the dress after every dance and it might stretch out the feis by another twenty plus hours, but the savings are worth it—at least to you. For one, you won’t be at the feis, remember? Two, although $300 is still a rip off, you can at least have enough money for food for the rest of the year. Oh, don’t worry too much about matching sizes, that’s what safety pins are for.

Okay, so now that feis dad’s given you some killer ideas on how to pay for that solo dress, what next?

Go out and buy it?

Ha! You should know me better than that by now.

Delay, delay, delay.

You can always hope that your daughter will lose interest in Irish Dance, or fall in love with horses instead. Okay, scratch that. The only thing worse than being a feis dad is being a horse dad.

--feis dad

Saturday, June 21, 2008

How the heck did I get into this in the first place

So, you’ve taken the FDS test and you scored high … like 12 out of a possible 10. Contemplating this score, you’ve also discovered something else about yourself.

Mainly, that you can’t count. But we’ll let that slide because the inability to handle complex mathematical functions is a common symptom of FDS.

So, you’ve got FDS and got it bad.

Don’t panic. It’s not terminal. At least not in the classic sense (though after spending fourteen hours at the last feis, you had wished it was).

Now that you know you’ve contracted this vile disease, we need to answer the most important question of all.

No, it’s not how to get rid of FDS, because there is NO totally getting rid of it, unless you plan on moving someplace where there are no feis’—like on the dark side of Jupiter.

The real question we need to answer is “how the heck did I get myself into this in the first place?”

This is the critical question.

Why?

Because you NEVER want to make that mistake again!

Okay, to answer this question I’m going to take you back to the very beginning. Before feis’. Before the wigs. Before the dresses. Before the drinking … well, maybe not that far back.

Close your eyes. Think back … way back … think back to when your sweet little daughter asked you if she could take that “free” Irish Dance lesson.

You hesitated. Something just didn’t feel right.

Then your loving wife said, “what harm could it be to send her to one FREE dance class?”

You wanted to say no. You’re no idiot. You know NOTHING in life is ever really free.

This was it. The defining point in your life. The mother of all decisions. The battle of wills you’ve been training for all your life.

Then your daughter gave you that smile. You know the one. It could melt even an Exxon CEO’s ice-cold heart (though he still wouldn’t reduce gas prices).

Don’t feel bad. The battle was over before it really ever began. Daughters have that power over their father. It’s their secret weapon, with more destructive power than all the Back Street Boys albums put together.

With that one capitulating nod of your head you were absorbed into a society in which there is no escape. Think the mafia or … I hate to even say it … Amway… only even more difficult to get out of (by the way, I’ve got a great deal on laundry soap during the month of June—give me a call).

So that’s the story. You gave in. Your daughter took the class. Your wife met other mothers just like her and was sweet talked into the IDMM (Irish Dance Mother’s Mafia) fold. Ever see the movie The Firm? She really didn’t have a choice either.

She was hooked. And you were toast.

Feis dad toast.

So, what’s my point of all this? I’m not really sure (the inability to remember important details is a symptom of acute FDS—at least that’s the story I’m sticking with).

But, I do remember the bottom line.

It doesn’t really matter how you were tricked into becoming a feis dad. The reality is, if you’re reading this and nodding your head, you have FDS.

You don’t have to love it, but you do have to live with it.

Hint: It’s a medical fact drinking does help—ask any doctor whose daughter is involved in Irish Dance.

--feis dad

Stay tuned for the next post to learn the best ways to deal with FDS (including hangover remedies)

Saturday, June 14, 2008

Feis Dad Syndrome

What are the symptoms of FDS or Feis Dad Syndrome?

Here are ten signs you might have FDS.

1. Have you recently pulled out your wallet to buy something you really wanted like that new fly fishing rod, a cold beer or the copay for the heart bypass surgery you’ve been needing, only to find there are cobwebs where your money used to be? You have a faint recollection of handing out stacks of twenty’s for your daughter’s solo dress a few months ago that she’s now outgrown.

2. The instant you hear accordion music, do you dive for your noise canceling headphones?

3. You have always thought sequins and garish dresses in neon colors were hideous. Now that your daughter is wearing one, you think they are not only hideous, but outrageously expensive.

4. Do you look for any excuse to miss a feis, including scheduling root canals and prostate exams even though you don’t need them?

5. Do you have nightmares of possessed wigs coming after you? All those curls … thousands of pounds of curls … curls wrapped so tight they could be used as springs on the rear end of your ¾ ton truck … attacking you, smothering you, feasting on your scalp … uh, you get the picture.

6. Are you going deaf after the endless hours of hard shoe practice on the wooden dance floor you set up in what used to be your office?

7. Do all of your vacations (which used to be associated with having fun) now correlate with feis’ located from Podunk, Iowa to Pudunk, Nebraska?

8. Does your eight-year-old daughter now put on more make up than Tammy Faye Baker and look about as bad?

9. Has your wife lost interest in every other topic in the world and all your current discussions relate to jigs and reels (not to be confused with talking about jugs and keels).

10. Have you ever been asked to leave a feis (thankfully) because your snoring has drowned out (thankfully) the accordion musician?

If you answered “yes” to at least one of these questions, you have FDS. If you answered “yes” to at least five questions, please seek professional psychiatric help. If you actually just answered more than five of the questions (doesn’t matter if you answered “yes” or “no” … just answering them is bad enough) you have terminal FDS.

But don’t worry.

There is help.

Join Feis Dad in making light of this difficult situation. There is strength in numbers. Laughter, while not a cure, can help alleviate some of the symptoms. So can a half a case of beer, but we’ll talk about the advantages of “feis drinking” later.


-- Feis dad

A serious message from feis dad about being a feis dad

This blog is not to be taken seriously. It’s meant to take a good-natured poke at how Irish Dance affects fathers (something many wives and daughters may not think about).

The reality of the situation is that most dads just don’t get the Irish Dance thing. It’s like asking our wives and daughters why they don’t throw high fives every time our favorite player hits a three-pointer in the playoffs.

I love my daughters, but I just can’t sit through twelve hours of accordion music at feis’ once a month. It is beyond me. And I truly believe that forcing me to do so would make me begin to resent their activity, which none of us want.

BUT, that doesn’t mean I don’t support our daughters in my own way.

That’s exactly what this blog is about. For good or bad, THIS is part of my support for them.

Some may say I’m not a good father if I don’t go to each and every performance or feis. But I believe both my daughters know I think what they are doing is important and good for them even though it’s hard for me to spell feis or oreach … orack … that big national feis thing.

My point in all of this is that although there are some things we just won’t do, I believe real feis dads need to ensure they:

Support their daughter’s (or son’s) love of Irish Dance.

Take interest in how they are doing.

Are excited when they perform well and move up.

Comfort them when they don’t.

Support their activity as much as we can within realistic financial and family obligations

Although we may not understand the specifics (like the difference is between a slip jig and a reel) we take an interest in the general idea

We tell our children we are proud of them every chance we get

Although we make light of some of the aspects of Irish Dance, they are never mean spirited or hurtful

We ensure that our children know what they are doing is important to us

Do what dads do best: build things—practice dance floors, sound systems, etc.

Take them to practices and performances when possible (even if it means missing part of the game, but maybe not if it’s the playoffs).

Again, this blog is not meant to be taken seriously.

No one is perfect. Not even feis dads. If you can’t laugh about it (or about yourself) then you’re missing out.

--feis dad