You Just Can’t Make This Sh*T Up; Extremely Comical and Unbelievably True Memoirs of a Childhood, Adolescence and Adulthood.: A Father’s guide to raising a proper American, Weightlifting, Dentist, Daughter

By Dr. Dominique Marie Fufidio

About the Book
Author Dominique Fufidio wanted to write a book, but about what?
While reading the first couple chapters of the autobiography by comedian Kevin Hart, she was inspired reading stories about his father. This prompted her to break out her computer and write the first chapter of You Just Can’t Make This Sh*t Up. Dominique started to write a story of childhood, the story of her childhood, all stories that involved her dad. These short stories are the same she had been telling for years, entertaining others while letting them into her life. Dominique’s childhood memoirs made her the life of every party and her father a legend.
Many wish to meet her dad, now all can know the stories of Dominique Fufidio, her childhood, and her experiences centralized around her father. If you didn’t know these stories are recollections of memories and experiences, you wouldn’t believe them to be true, they are just flat-out absurd. These stories are so far out of the norm of how children are raised, how people behave, you really just can’t make this sh*t up.

About the Author
Dr. Dominique Marie Fufidio lives in Dallas, Texas with her husband, Matthew, and two dog babies. She owned and sold her successful dental practice, is a retired competitive athlete, coach, mentor, and good friend. Dominique wrote this book around the time of her ten-year wedding anniversary, dedicating it to Matt.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dorrance Publishing Company
• Release date: Jun 16, 2023
• ISBN: 9798888128848

Book preview

Dedication

Although many expect this book to be written for my father, and it was a goal to finish it in his lifetime, this book is dedicated to my husband, Matthew.

Matt, you inspired me to write this book. You continue to influence me to be my best, and have helped me see the comedy in all of these stories. You are a huge part of these stories, and shaped my perspective around them. You have shown me nothing about my family is normal, but being normal is overrated. You married me knowing what you were getting into. I love you, and thank you.

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But a note to my dad as he embarks on reading our story cover to cover. I want you to know that I think of you always and these stories are only some of the many thoughts of you, Dad. Please enjoy and get the tissues ready, or the violin as you always say….

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Introduction

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Never had I thought I would write a novel. The actual task seemed daunting and just downright painful. It had been a running joke that someone in my family needed to compile a collection of all our family stories. When out at networking events, while fostering new friendships, during icebreaker games, I would retell stories from my childhood, specifically stories that involved my dad, and they were of all the rage. Lives have been enriched and nights well spent laughing over these extremely comical and unbelievably true stories of my childhood. My father, time and time again, loved hearing how he was the life of the party, 1600 miles away. My father was, and still is, the type of man who says exactly what was on his mind, has no filter and makes friends everywhere he goes.

This left no dull moments. So I know the title caught your attention because of my use of profanity, but believe me, you won’t be disappointed as I tell my story, the stories of my childhood that have made me the woman I am today. Thanks in advance Dad for unknowingly providing all the content and shaping me into this life of the party daughter of yours. I am armed with stories for every occasion. You have helped me compose this guide for fathers to raising a proper, American, weightlifting, dentist daughter.

So here we go, let’s begin with my first trip to a strip club, at age two.

Chapter 1

She has all the same parts!

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I was the firstborn child, the first grandchild. As most couples in the ’70s and ’80s, my parents met young. Later on, when my now husband, Matt, proposed to me asking for my hand in marriage, I asked my mother, "How did Dad ask you to marry him? Her response was classic of my dad. Ask? He didn’t ask. He drove up to your grandparent’s house, threw a ring at me and said, ‘May 1st, we are getting married. Be there.’" That is how my mom and dad got engaged. He is certainly the romantic in the family.

As a young girl I asked my mom and dad how they met as I believe every young child does. My parents told me that my dad owned an autobody and collision shop and my mom came in. She had on tight jeans and a face full of makeup and my father planned to rip her off. Nice, Dad. Very charming. However, he was charmed by my mother when she thought it was a little too cold out and she went out of her way to buy him a sweater to keep warm as he worked on her vehicle. She even went for the green to bring out his eyes.

Shortly after, they started dating as I imagined and my mother was completely clueless that my father was actually engaged to be wed to another woman. My mother, Denise, worked in a nail salon and had been seeing my father for a couple weeks, maybe months. Whatever seeing means, I did not care to ask! She was providing a manicure to a beautiful, and busty woman, named Lisa. Lisa and my mom were chatting about how Lisa is getting married to the owner of Great Bear Collision. My mother said she was dating a guy from Great Bear Collision.

Lisa asked if my mother dated black men. My mom said no. Lisa insisted that all the workers were black. My mom said, No it’s Mike, with the green eyes. For those of you not putting it together, Mike, with the green eyes? That is my father.

Both ladies went home together to confront my father. They arrived at my dad’s place wanting an explanation. My dad, in classic Dad fashion, said, Well, you caught me, who wants me more? My father was no longer engaged to Lisa and my mom and dad were married, May 1st, remember, as he instructed. My dad later built my mom a home for all the kids he wanted and even made the road. He put us on the map. We lived on Lisa Court. I just can’t make this sh*t up.

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As the firstborn I did everything with my dad. Mom was home, cleaning and cooking, I was out with Dad. I was attached to his side. I was riding on motorcycles, I was hanging out at the autobody, we would walk the beach, eat hot dogs together, and drink beer. I kid you not. I have a picture of me in my grandparent’s driveway chugging a Heineken on a hot day holding on to my dad’s bicep for balance because I was barely old enough to walk. I shit you not. My dad always insisted there were vitamins in beer I wouldn’t get elsewhere in my diet and I accepted this nutritional information like the Holy Grail because Dad told me himself. Just like Adam Sandler in The Waterboy, But Dad always says… I was later embarrassed as an adolescent finding out, this was not, in fact, true.

My mother would freak when we would be out and I would be grasping for Dad’s beer, or that I always smelled of hot dogs. As I got older my dad taught me how to keep a secret. There were ways of hiding the smell of the hot dogs with Altoids and gum. However, one thing he couldn’t teach me was how to not dance erotically with my mother’s pearl necklace before I was old enough to know how to keep a secret. Yes, guilty. When I said I went everywhere with my father, that included the strip club.

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On weekends, Dad and I would be out joy riding through town in Dad’s Ferrari (it later was purchased by a museum because it was one of the last manufactured under the late Ferrari’s supervision). One Saturday morning we passed a pretty beat up building going through Smithtown Landing. Dad pointed to it and told me it was once a strip club.

Dad continued on telling me I had actually been in there before. I had no recollection. Story goes, I was so young and again, went everywhere with Dad. He took me out with his guy friends for a night out on the town too, I guess. He continued to tell me a story of how on one occasion they went to frequent the club and at the door, the bouncer told him I couldn’t go in. Dad doesn’t take no from anyone. Quick on his feet Dad told him, She has all the same parts; she is coming in with me! I guess I made it in and my young mind absorbed everything I saw.

Later on I became an accomplished gymnast and even a national level Olympic weightlifter. My coaches attributed my success largely due to my body awareness, and strength because I’d workout with Dad on Sundays in our home gym, more on that to come.

Well, my father didn’t expect me to have such body awareness and skill only at age two. After our visit to the strip club my mother found out where I had been when I was reproducing the choreography I had witnessed, with pretty remarkable prop selection identifying my mother’s pearl necklace as a familiar object. I would be MORTIFIED when my parents would retell this story, and sadly to this day, even at thirty-seven, they still make me cover my eyes before my father will reenact what my routine looked like. Well, talk about a diverse childhood athletic background, I guess. You really can’t make this up.

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So enough for now with the stories I had to be told, let’s fast track to the one’s I actually recall. I bet you would all like to know where my name came from, just as I had wanted to know. I mean I am Italian, very Italian, and Dominique, that is a very French name.

Chapter 2

"We wanted you to be just as beautiful

and successful."

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Dominique. It is a French name. I am Italian. My father’s side it mostly Italian, a little Russian. My mother’s side mostly Italian, and Syrian Lebanese. Exciting stuff, although my father refused to acknowledge the Middle Eastern background. Said Your mother’s side of the family flings shit. You don’t, you aren’t Lebanese. You can’t change your heritage, Dad. My brothers and I, we are Lebanese.

I was in first grade. Ms. Lopez, our art teacher, launched a new project. We were all to go home and inquire as to where our names came from for our next art piece. Ms. Lopez told us that many of us could have been named after family members, which may seem boring to us, but it is a huge compliment to be named after someone. She was very ill-prepared for where my name came from.

As instructed, I went home and would ask my parents where the name Dominique came from. I always did my homework at the kitchen table while Mom made dinner a couple feet away. Dad would come home, always kiss my mother, and then check my homework before we would all eat together. I had three younger brothers and they would be in the living room, still only steps away and within ears’ distance of Mom. I write about all the comical stories, but recognize, my parents really did raise us well. We had a great home environment and my creativity and intelligence was fostered and cultivated. Hence, why I came out so smart. (Insert brunette hair toss emoji).

Dad got home and it was time to ask.

Me: Where did my name come from?

Mom, Dad: What?!

Me: We are doing an art project about our names, and Ms. Lopez said to ask where our names came from. Was I named after someone?

Mom and Dad look awkwardly at each other.

Mom: Well, Michael, do we tell her?

Me: Tell me what?!

Dad: Well, we always treat you like an adult.

Mom: No, Michael!

Dad: Well, there was a beautiful woman named Dominique.

Mom: Your father was infatuated with this woman.

Me: Then why didn’t Daddy marry her.

Dad: Well you see, she kind of modeled for men.

Me: I was named after a stripper?!

Dad: No, she professionally posed for men. She would wear little shorts and boots and I had a T-shirt that said, ‘slip into something more comfortable’ and Dominique would be on it. Your mother was so jealous she would take my shirts, cut them up and wash her car with them.

Me: Mom! You let him name me after this woman?

Mom looks at me so seriously. Dominique is a beautiful name!

Me: So what do I tell Ms. Lopez?

Dad: You tell the class that you were named after a woman named Dominique St. Pierre, she is a beautiful woman that many men pine for, and we wanted you to be as beautiful and successful as her.

Me: Oh, okay…. Continues on with homework like nothing happened.

Next week in art class the class reconvenes. Ms. Lopez asks us to go around and share what new information we have about the background of our names. The class turns to me only to hear exactly what my dad told me to say. I was named after a woman named Dominique St. Pierre. She is a beautiful woman that many men pine for, and my mom and dad wanted me to be as beautiful and successful as she is. Ms. Lopez was very uncomfortable and that was the end of me having the floor. On to the next student. Fast track years later and this story resurfaces…

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Throughout high school and college when the topic of my name, Dominique, a French name for an obviously Italian young lady, would come up or be questioned, I would mention how I must have been named after a figure model or some public figure from a magazine similar to Sports Illustrated. I never really knew or questioned it. It was when I was in dental school and the topic came up that I went home and told my now husband that I really needed to find a picture of this woman that was just so beautiful I was named after her. Matt, my boyfriend at the time is very capable on Google.

He said, Well, tell me some of the things you remember about her. I said, I was told over and over again her name, it was Dominique St. Pierre. We googled. Found nothing. I then remembered my father’s description of the scene on his T-shirt/car washing rag. We googled, Dominique St. Pierre slip into something more comfortable. No luck. Brilliant Matt then said, You know what, you are an ’80s baby, let’s research the Playmates of the year from the ’70s through the ’80s. Bingo! Sure enough we found the names of all the Playboy’s Playmates of the year. Ms. St. Pierre, originally born in Germany, was Playboy magazine’s Playmate of the Month for the November 1978 issue and the 1979 Playmate of the Year. What an honor, according to Matt.

We were able to find her original centerfold and even found my dad’s T-shirt! He really did love that shirt as I was able to find it exactly as he described. She was bent over and had on her red boots. This was her. The woman I was named after. However, there was one slight problem. I couldn’t be named after this woman. I mean, yes the timeline was correct, yes we