Swanson children don’t grow baby teeth. They find it wasteful.
1. For years, Ron went to Paunch Burger every week and forced himself to put a sliced banana on his double bacon cheeseburger to keep his potassium levels up.
2. Eventually, they created a special menu item for him named “The Swanson Cheeseburnana: Full of Potassi-yum.”
3. Ron physically removed the item from the menu and never returned to Paunch Burger.
4. During Diane’s final ultrasound before baby John Swanson was born, the doctor joked that it looked like the baby had a mustache already. Ron explained that, yes, all Swanson are born with a full mustache that they lose before growing their permanent mustache around age 12, much like baby teeth.
4. However, Swanson children don’t grow baby teeth. They find it wasteful.
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5. When Diane insisted Ivy and Zoe get iPhones for safety reasons, Ron took them to the Apple Store and refused to refer to any of the merchandise as anything other than “evil boxes.”
6. After April and Andy had their first baby, Ron took Andy on a weeklong getaway to teach him basic survival skills to protect his growing family. Andy forgot all his supplies, including his contact lenses.
7. The trip lasted two days, and ended when Ron walked into their tent and Andy said, “Look, I found a lost puppy,” and continued feeding Skittles to the baby black bear in his sleeping bag.
8. Ron took April on the same trip a month later, and she is now better-equipped to survive dystopia than Ron himself.
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9. For their 10th wedding anniversary, Ron and Diane went to Food and Stuff, then visited the pothole he patched outside her house when they first met.
10. Ron, never one for public displays of any emotion (but especially affection), surprised Diane by pulling out his tool belt and expertly carving their initials into the patched pothole.
11. Elon Musk once tried to patent the Swanson Pyramid of Greatness for a lucrative amount of money. Ron, arms crossed, declined with a single shake of his head.
12. When she hit high school, Ivy briefly dated a classmate with a manbun. Ron refused to acknowledge any of this.
13. Ron consented to see a doctor once a year for an annual check-up. He was always in perfect health, and the doctor once remarked that Ron’s hair appeared to be getting thicker with age, somehow.
14. Ron confirmed that Swanson men get thicker hair, denser bones, and higher sperm count as they age.
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15. Duke Silver was offered a spot on his friend Bruce Springsteen’s farewell tour, which he politely declined in favor of keeping his regular spot at the local jazz club.
16. Springsteen did, however, make an uncredited appearance on Duke’s first digital album, Silver Streams.
17. For Ben and Leslie’s 20th wedding anniversary, Duke Silver secretly asked his friend Kenny Loggins to sing “Highway to the Calzone Zone” at the party.
18. For Ron’s [redacted] birthday, Leslie put together a 200-clue, 16-hour scavenger hunt across Pawnee that ended back at Ron’s cabin. Inside, Ron found a bottle of Lagavulin 16 Whisky and a scoop of rum raisin ice cream from Baskin-Robbins.
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19. Ron led the Pawnee National Park Rangers until his [redacted] birthday, when he retired to a cabin in an undisclosed location within the park’s bounds with Diane.
20. When Ron announced his retirement, the rangers erected a statue in his honor. Unfortunately, it kept being mysteriously torn down.
21. Ron was the one tearing it down, because “government tributes are a vain waste of taxpayers’ money.”
22. At the end of his last day, Ron didn’t say goodbye to anyone. The rangers found a handmade canoe on the lake’s shore with the message “Paddle on” carved on the side.
23. They put canoe up where the statue had been, and it still stands to this day.
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