The REAL Mad Man

A vibrating Santa. Stuffed, plush, and cute in that really bland, obnoxious way that Hello Kitty is. And it vibrates. Worse yet, it laughs. When Dad showed it to me years ago, I winced. Maybe I was in my early twenties, still in university, and had a lot of vulgar, half-assed Marxism rattling around my noggin. Or it could have been my late twenties. By then the half-assed Marxism would have been pounded out of my skull by cold, hard reality. However, my fear of remaining forever on the bottom rung of the socio-economic ladder brought a pained expression to my face.

But not this year. When my sister brought it out, that tacky ball of plush fabric stuffed with cotton made me smile. My Dad sold a million of them. It was one of many good calls that he made during his career as a buyer for Saan Stores, a discount clothing retailer in Western Canada. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Teletubbies, Big Mouth Billy Bass, and countless other fads. The executives above him would hem and haw, but the old man had a gut instinct that was never wrong.

Even when he got kicked to the curb, forced out into early retirement, Dad had the last laugh. Almost to the month after his severance package ran out, the company went bankrupt. Anyone that had stayed on with the company, including the Doubting Thomases that second guessed my father's judgment for a good chunk of his career, got nothing.

When Matthew Weiner was still running around getting half-caf no foam soy cappuchinos for David Chase, my Dad was the original Don Draper. Dad earned a fraction of what Draper earned (adjusted for inflation), didn't smoke, was a moderate drinker, and was faithful to his wife, but inasmuch as I love watching Mad Men, I consider it an accurate reflection and vindication of my father's core values as a businessman: hard work, honesty, integrity, dedication, and loyalty.