... and My Fucking Father was the cause of it all. First I went around my brother to get some salad, who came home for dinner, and my dad went "No!" in that whiny voice of his and shoved the plate in front of my placemat. And then he wouldn't stop talking about how Sonia Sotomayor wouldn't survive her confirmation hearing to be the new Supreme Court Justice and how angry he was that the Obamas went out on a date to New York City on the taxpayers' dime (although I don't mind the President enjoying himself once in a while, I kind of see his point).
But the thing that really set me off was when we started eating the birthday cake. I got up to do something in the kitchen while my mom was handing out slices. While in the kitchen My Fucking Father asked me to get a fork. I guess when my Grandmother got some of the plastic utensils, she got four instead of five or grabbed a knife or something, and my dad needed one. So I grab a fork. But when I get back to my seat and hand it to him, I see that asshole eating his cake with my spoon. The spoon I grabbed. For me. Not for him. Fucker.
He did that once before. I complained and he started going off on me for still living at home. Not only is stealing utensils a pet peeve of mine, I inevitably think he's going to use my reaction as an entree to listing my limitations. He didn't, but it may be because we were celebrating mom's birthday.
So I played along. When we got done I plopped my paper plate on top of his ... but then took his placemat to the trash. I helped clean up, although he was going to clean the dishes anyway because he always does. (Maybe he thinks that because he's doing the chore he can be a dick whenever he wants to. Uh, I don't think so.) I turned off the TV because that's what I usually do when we get done with dinner, but 60 Minutes re-ran a feature of the closing of a bank, so he asked me to turn it on. I did, tilted it his way towards the kitchen, but turned the volume down because, really, it was too fucking loud all dinner. I brought it down from, like, 70 to, like, 40. He then wanted me to turn it up, so I did ... but just a little, to 45 or so. Then I washed my hands. On the way out I saw my mom turn it back up all the way.
And then my dad sat down to watch the piece. I decided I needed to put the empty containers out to recycle, and they really needed to be put out, I really didn't do it just to piss off my dad. A milk crate is holding down the top of the container so the bottles and cans inside don't jump and fly out. But I had to drop it somewhere, so I dropped it on the deck -- not hard, not anything louder than usual, but it was enough for my dad to look back at me from his chair. I said "Sorry!" but a couple minutes later he got up and started washing dishes again. I don't know if he did that because he no longer was interested in the story -- he does have the attention span of a gnat some times -- or if he got pissed off that I was getting back at him passive-aggressively. He hasn't talked to me since dinner.
I felt bad before I started blogging this. I was going to say I feared his retribution tomorrow. But after the shit he pulled on me, what with taking my spoon, I'm not feeling that guilty anymore. Besides, I did some things to him in retaliation. I have to realize that through those actions, I owned my anger towards my father and that I am inviting, if not courting, an ugly response from him. Because, really, I've tried to be nice to him and to let the things he's done to me slide off my back, only for him to jump on my ass for something different. At least in this case I "did something" to stoke his anger.
In short, I don't feel bad anymore for what I did to him because of what he did to me.
No comments:
Post a Comment