World’s Best Dad
Amid the uncountable permutations of existence, quantifiable only in degrees of infinity, the startlingly infrequent arrangement of particles which have miraculously been granted the burden of awareness as to the existence of the rest of the universe have long concerned themselves with the superfluous ranking of things into the subjective spectrum of “Worst” to “Best”. Most egregious among these fall to those which perpetuate via zygote splicing with other individuals to produce offspring, in other terms, parents. It is no surprise that those whose entire existence is predicated on the rearing of children to ask the question of who’s the best at it, undoubtedly eyeing the handsome fellow in the mirror for the title. Thus was born the premiere one-time novelty gift known as the #1 Dad Mug, a drinking vessel with the titular phrase printed on its side in bold text, serving as a trophy from which the victor may drink their daily stimulant. But of course, such a lofty title is greatly sought, and so the widespread manufacturing of these awards became necessary, thus leading to billions upon billions of unworthy recipients.
Such an egregious defilement of basic statistics could not go unaddressed by the mesmerizingly dull people of the universe, in the brief interludes between their data entry obligations insistently performed by hand, begging the question; if there exists a #1 Dad Mug, then surely, there could only ever be one recipient. Enter, the Official Fatherhood Ranking Leaderboard- an organization run in perpetuity, whose entire purpose was threefold: Keep a record of all fathers in the known universe, provide a submission form into which descriptions and adages may be added by their children and loved ones, along with a 1-5 star ranking system submitted by anyone in the universe, and a mug-manufacturing-facility, wherein all registered fathers may request a special mug, printed with their exact ranking upon the fatherhood leaderboard, thus giving them an accurate trophy befitting their honestly earned position, and funding the operations of the organization at the same time.
Once established, the trend quickly caught on- with family and acquaintances and begrudging coworkers flocking to the associated website to affectionately put their paternal figures in their place. For a time, the novelty was harmless, billions of fathers proudly and good-naturedly carrying their billionth place ranking mug, and jovially prodding one another as to their relative rankings. Truly abhorrent men always scraped the bottom, with news stories often proceeding mass review bombings, sending them into a ranking freefall; and likewise the top ranks were undoubtedly filled with whichever good fatherly deed was most openly performed by popular celebrities and other public-facing parents, with a few notable years of heroic civilian fathers claiming the number one spot due to a headline-catching news story.
But of course, all competition is inevitably sullied by the competitive, most especially when dealing with the sort of men who hold any weight as to their superfluous ranking in a fictional competition for a ceramic mug with a number printed on the side. The first few fights that broke out were merely amusing, the joke of course compounded by the resulting ranking plummet, but things began to take an uncomfortable turn for all but the most soulless internet ghouls when the alarming trend of abusive fathers intimidating their families for higher rankings was first brought to light. And while the now multi-billion delta mug company was too busy fighting unsafe labor practice suits to weigh an ounce of soulful partiality upon the matter, retaining their position as a mere record holder, the ultimate death of the entire system came at the hands of headline fishers.
You see, Game Theory states that, given the chance, the most competitive players of any game will always identify and pursue the optimal strategy for victory over anything else. And for the Fatherhood Ranking Leaderboards, if one was not already a public figure, the only path to the number one spot was a heroic father headline, made just before the yearly cut off. At first the end-of-year spike in heroic fathers was celebrated as an unintentional good by the leaderboard officiants, with many fathers donating huge sums of money to orphanages, or posthumous awards to fathers who gave vital organs to save their children. But this notion, and thusly the entire operation came crashing down due to a man known as Thomas Grink- who, after seeing the previous year’s title spot be given to a heroic father who cut down a home invader with a broken table leg, opted to hire a hitman from the mercenary’s board to enter his home and attempt to kill his family, intending to stop them once they arrived, and claim the spot for the price of ten thousand deltas and perhaps a bullet wound or two. This plan expectedly backfired when the trained killer proved more physically adept than the core-planet white-collar father, and successfully eliminated Mr. Grink’s wife and two sons, before grievously wounding the attacking Mr. Grink. The following police report filed by Mr. Grink saw the Mercenary appear in court, at which point Mr. Grink’s payment was made known. This, combined with the myriad of other controversies, saw the Official Fatherhood Ranking Leaderboard organization finally shutter its doors, forever shelving the competition, and unintentionally declaring one Mr. Copernicus Borax as the final and true Number 1 Dad, a situation which proved beneficial to Mr. Broax, as the following year saw his name in headlines a second time, after an unfortunate interaction between a passing motorcyclist and his combine harvester.
