Let me tell you a story.

It’s dad’s 60th birthday, and the entire family seems to have forgotten that it’s a special occasion. The entire day seems to be passing by unnoticed. Dad has been quietly thinking to himself how much he has done for these ungrateful wildebeasts that he calls “family”. Nobody has even mentioned the Aardvark Parade that his family has made an annual tradition of on his birthday for nary the last 20 years.

His son seems completely oblivious to the fact that it’s his 60th birthday. His wife has been knitting a yarn-sheath like she does on every other Friday night. Business as usual. Even the fact that dad put on the striped shirt that he bought at Nordstroms hasn’t tipped any of his family members off. “But I always wear this striped shirt on my birthday, how can nobody notice?”, he says to himself.

Johnny, his son, asks dad if he can help him pick up an oboe from his uncle Ray’s house. Dad agrees, and the two set out across town to pick up the oboe. For the better part of the drive, dad is silently contemplating reaching across the front seat, grabbing the steering wheel, and guiding the volvo head on into a cypress tree.

When they walk into uncle Ray’s house, the entire family is waiting for him. “Suprise!!!”, they scream. His wife is holding his favorite yellow Whynatte hat. His daughter has a hot a latte one hand, and a cold shot of Jager in the other. His sister is holding two front row tickets to the Aardvark Festival. Everyone is there…friends from then, friends from now.

The moral of the story, of course, is that there was no oboe to pick up from uncle Ray’s house, after all.

Father Latte: Wears a Whynatte hat.

Your father: Wears a Hard Rock Cafe hat.

They say that when he would drink a Whynatte, his eyes would pierce through your soul like a katana blade.

Nice to see that your favorite striped shirt was not worn in vain.

Turning 60 doesn’t have to be all soothing oinments and Alaskan cruises. In case you missed the memo, 60 is the 20, and nobody embodies this new way of thinking like our silver-headed man about town, Father Latte.