My Parents Are Too Happy

Maybe it's because of the hellacious snowstorm we went through today. May it was because I saw Sam's Wine Shop close and clean out its store and Cheapo not open till midnight during my Lone Wolf Sojourn last night. But a funny thing occurred to me last night when my parents were in a good mood again: Are my parents about to close our store?

I fight with them a lot, but I'm most proud of them for doing two things I don't think I have the courage to do: Immigrate to the United States and start their own (successful) business. It's stressful work, the latter, but the upside to me is that they are their own bosses (well, they do have to listen to their customers, but that doesn't reallyh count). They have made their own way through this world, and they dragged three children through college with their store. That is an accomplishment.

But being the worrywarts that they are, they have complained for a long time how bad business is. To this day I have no idea if they're telling the truth, or how much of it is the truth. And they keep wanting to retire, they've said for years they've wanted to retire. But I've been seeing signs that trouble me. For the past, oh, half-decade, for example, that they've been getting home at a regular time, like 5 or 6; when I was really young, they would sometimes stay at the store till 7 or even 8, it was so busy. Also, my parents have taken frequent trips to Las Vegas. They love to go to Vegas. And finally, my father has started branching off into real estate since the country's economy has gone to shit the last couple of years.

These circumstances have been around for awhile, so maybe there isn't anything imminent, although the economy appears to be nothing most of us on earth has ever experienced. I don't know, I guess I just thought that with a late-February snowstorm, I'd expect them, in particular my father, to come home pissed off. He wasn't. It's like they say with people who have made the decision to commit suicide: They are very emotional, disruptive, prone to fits of anger and unconsolable, but then they are calm, almost serene -- and then they kill themselves. Does the same fate befit the store, the vehicle that has allowed me and this family to enjoy our American Dream? I hated working there when I was young, but I couldn't bear to see it die, especially in this economic climate, even though I wouldn't know the first thing about how to run a business.

Maybe I'm just depressed over the snowstorm.