Bruce Cameron - 8 Simple Reasons Why My Daughter May Not Go to Guam

Apr 15, 20100

Dear Daughter: Though you are over 21, I am denying you permission to go on vacation to Guam, of all places, for the following reasons.

1. I never heard of anyone going to Guam for vacation. People go to Guam to fight the Battle of the Pacific. I’ve seen your pictures of their luxury hotels and fabulous beaches, but what the tourist bureau hasn’t told you is that you’ll have to wade ashore with an M-1 rifle.

2. In the movie “Taken,” the daughter goes to Europe against her father’s wishes. He’s forced to get on a plane and save her, in the process wiping out a lot of French people. It’s a very instructive movie because it proves that when dads are mad they can take out a French hoodlum with a single punch. It also proves that if you don’t listen to your father, you will be kidnapped. Because the French economy has enough problems already, I don’t think I should go over there and start killing everybody. They are likely to have difficulty understanding why I am shooting up France when you’re in Guam.

3. When I was in junior-high geography class, we never even studied Guam. For that matter, we didn’t really even study geography. So I had to look it up on the Internet, and the thing is a tiny speck of land in the middle of an absurd amount of ocean! I doubt an airplane could even find the place. Why can’t you vacation someplace closer? There’s a great hotel right down the street from me. You could help me clean out my garage.

4. In the movie “Die Hard 4,” the daughter rebels against her father and winds up getting kidnapped. To get her back, Bruce Willis has to destroy America. I’m OK with doing that, but in one part he is hanging on to the outside of a jet plane while it flies around blowing up everything that got built under the stimulus package. I am not going to fly on the outside of a jet — the seats in coach are bad enough.

5. President Obama canceled his trip to Guam. He said it was because of the health care debate, but how do we know it wasn’t because of Guam?

6. The movie “Jaws” starts out with a woman your age going swimming without her father’s permission and getting eaten by a giant shark. We don’t actually get to see her father denying her permission — they probably edited that part out — but you can be sure I would never let you hang out with boys at the beach at night and then go swimming in an ocean crawling with gigantic flesh-eating fish.

The lesson here (how many times do we need to go over this?) is that if you don’t listen to your father, you will be ripped to pieces by a shark for sure. And obviously if the woman in the movie had managed to make it back to shore, she would have been kidnapped and taken to France.

7. In the movie “Titanic,” a woman goes on a long boat trip and there is no indication her father told her it was OK, so naturally the boat sinks. She does manage to survive, but before that happens there’s a song by Celine Dion that lasts longer than the Battle of the Pacific and is just as pleasant to listen to.

If you don’t want to suffer through a song like that you should listen to your father, who is much more pleasing to the ear. To prove it, I’ve left a rendition of the song “Don’t Go to Guam My Garage Needs Cleanin’” on your voicemail.

8. Do you not remember the trip your sister took to Europe? It was a complete disaster because she didn’t call me every day. She could not possibly have had fun — I don’t care what she claims. You can’t have a good time if you forget to call Dad. If you’re cleaning my garage, you don’t have to use a phone, you can just yell.

I hope this settles the matter.

To write Bruce Cameron, visit his website at http://www.wbrucecameron.com. To find out more about Bruce Cameron and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at http://www.creators.com.

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