The Bob 101

"Bayless, I met a cute girl the other day who knows you."

"Really? What's her name?"

"Allison -- she's friends with Nan [my cousin]."

"Allison..." I think hard... I vaguely recall an Allison who is friends with Nan. Blonde chick, with short hair. "Is she blonde?"

The Bob hesitates for a moment. "Blonde?" he asks. "Not really blonde -- she has short hair."

As if the length of the hair somehow affects the color.

"What do you mean 'but it's short'?" I ask.

"Well it's dirty blonde."

"Yeah but what does the color have to do with the length? Unless she's got a shaved head the hair is going to be the same color whether it's short or long, Dad."

"Bayless I don't know," he says, with a faint touch of irritation, like being outside without sunglasses at 4 p.m. on a summer afternoon in Texas. "It was blonde but it was a little darker."

"But short," I reminded him.

"Correct."

Sometimes my dad speaks in a language in which only those close to him have attained fluency.

"Dad my question is why did you answer the question as if somehow the length of the hair affects its color. Even if her hair was down to her ass, if it's blonde, it's going to be blonde."

At this point the focus is no longer on Allison; I'm just trying to see if The Bob understands that he is the inventor of a dialect.

"She knows you," he says, "and she's cute," tired of my pointless questions and trying to refocus my attention on the important details before moving onto other points of conversation.

We went on to discuss the McGrady trade, how the Knicks think they're going to sign Wade and Lebron this summer, the coup in Niger, a 1099 my former party boat employer sent to my childhood house, car insurance, and the fact that no, I don't really exercise.

Pretty standard Bob talk. But it was short.