I'm 100% sure that I have written about this particular subject before, but given what has happened to me in the last 12 hours, I clearly have to revisit it.

There is a list of things that men cannot do together. I don't make these rules, I never got a memo explaining this things to me, there is no rules coordinator, they are just rules that were magically instilled in my brain and I adhere to them whether I like them or not. As men we don't watch Oprah without a woman somewhere in the house, we don't sit next to each other at the movies, we don't call each other and say happy birthday without saying "man" afterwards, and we don't go to the men's dressing room together. There are others but you get the point.

So yesterday, my father sent me an email about how excited he was that our next President is a Columbia University grad just like he is. I sent him an email right back, letting him know that a Hampton University grad was next, and then he did the unthinkable. When my father sent me an email back, he said, "The sky's the limit", and then he put a smiley face after that sentence. Now, I understand my father is almost 60 years old, and he might not be fully educated on the rules of engagement when it comes to trading emails with another man, so I can somewhat give him the benefit of the doubt. I also understand that 90% of my correspondence with him takes place over the phone and in person, but a smiley face? Really? As my boy Cliff said, if he's sending this to me, who else is he sending smiley face's too, and how much sex and respect has this cost him this year alone? I expect and welcome this behavior from my mother, but not from the man who continues to teach me how to be a man.

I didn't respond to the email he sent me, because I am verklempt and shell shocked. I want to call and make fun of him, but I don't want to hurt his feelings..then again, I have spent several paragraphs clowning him here, so why stop there? Something must be done though. By the way, the exchange wasn't all bad. The "sky's the limit" reference he made was pretty funny, and it references an exchange between the media and basketball player Micheal Ray Richardson(yes he spelled Micheal that way). Anyway, the Knicks were in a particularly putrid stretch and a reporter asked him this:

REPORTER: What do you think is happening to the team?
RICHARDSON: The ship be sinking.
REPORTER: How far can it sink?
RICHARDSON: Sky's the limit.

Even 25 years later, that is hilarious to me. So my Dad gets major props for referencing this, but that were IMMEDIATELY nullified with that smiley face...

(You Caught Me) Smilin - Sly and the Family Stone