I have no idea if me eating the pork Grandmother made put him in a foul mood or if he was in a foul mood when he got home. He warned me about not eating the meat Grandmother prepared because ... I don't know. Maybe he doesn't like the way she seasons them, or maybe it's because she keeps them in there for days until it gets rancid. It could be that she cooks them wrong -- or he doesn't like the way she cooks them. But he told me a few times recently not to eat her meat. Which I kind of understand and kind of don't. On the one hand, her cooking has not been up to snuff for ... a while now. On the other hand, every person needs to feel useful. Without the ability or the need to cook for others, Grandmother loses her purpose, a sense that she's being productive, that she's there for a reason. I don't want to take that away from her. But then again, I need to stay in this house.
So when I was working downstairs and I came up because I had to remind her that she needed to get the hell out of the kitchen before My Fucking Father came home, and she asked me if I was hungry, and she showed me the meat she laid out, well, fuck, I didn't know what to do. I decided to tell her what My Fucking Father told me about her meat. I think Grandmother understood, but then she concluded that she should never buy meat again. I'll take that as an OK, but to make it up to her, I told her to cook two pieces of pork for me -- but make it quick, he doesn't want to see her cooking or me eating what she cooked.
So she got on it, and even though I made sure she got all the parts of the pork fried up (though it was close), the three pieces of pork she made for me turned out fine. I'm typing this 7 1/2 hours after eating and I'm not dead, so Grandmother's cooking is perfect. And to try and justify eating, I told Grandmother I would eat downstairs as I'm helping Mother out with this spreadsheet project I didn't get around till this evening.
I made sure I snarfed the pork down as fast as I could; they could come home at any minute and see the pork I'm eating, so I rotated through each piece, taking one bite, then another, before going back to the spreadsheets. When I heard the front door opening, I quickly shoved the last four pieces into my mouth.
My Fucking Father cooks at The Store nowadays, probably a combination of having nothing to do there and wanting to avoid Grandmother potentially turning the kitchen into a disaster by the way she uses the stove (at least according to him), so we were ready to eat immediately. I had a bed of rice I put underneath the pork, the better for it to sop up all the juices from the pork. Trust me, that's soooooooooo tasty.
But eating the pork before they came home didn't work. When I laid down my plate full of rice, My Fucking Father saw the burnt pieces of onion or seasoning, whatever it was that was on the pork, and started yelling at me: "I told you not to eat Grandmother's meat."
I thought about this moment, so I tried this: "I was hungry, and I wanted to eat something."
"You'll regret it later as soon as you get sick," he replied. But I'm not sick yet, am I?
And this is where he's at his worst. He's a vindictive man because he takes what he thinks are slights against him and gets back at people, most notably me, when he gets the chance. His chance came a few minutes later, when Mother came back up to eat dinner. They saw I left the car out on the driveway; I wanted to exercise after this. So she says, "You leaving after this?" And I, concerned that there now is this surprise deadline for the spreadsheet, goes: "Yeah. You need this done soon?"
Damn, I shouldn't've said that, because My Fucking Father, as he was walking to the kitchen, sassed me, "Yeah! She can't type that fast!" Luckily Mother was being a grown-up and let me go. I hope there isn't a deadline. And I hope they don't find out I was just exercising. Trust me, it seems innocuous, even beneficial. But they wouldn't like it.
I tried to make up for staring on this late by getting done eating early -- I already ate Grandmother's pork -- and get started on some more spreadsheets before Mother's ready to take over. She always acted like she wanted me to teach her instead of having me do it for her, which is smart. Anyway, I'm working and My Fucking Father comes in to get his pajamas so he can shower and change. He sets me off to do one of his chores, namely putting away the hoses and sprinklers in the front and back yards. I, trying to be the grown-up here, remind him about the little circle on the kitchen calendar indicating that I won't be eating home tomorrow because I'm doing an all-day experiment. And he replies, "Good." Of course he would; he doesn't want to see the sight of me after I disappointed him by eating Grandmother's pork. Idiot.
Ever since I've been figuring out ways to get back at him in the same passive-aggressive way he came at me tonight. When I came back from working out I started curling up the front yard hose and sprinkler because I knew I wouldn't have time to do it before I leave in the morning and I won't be back till late tomorrow night, even though I didn't have the key to the shed like I thought I did. So I just put it along the side of the house. Now that I think about, maybe I should just leave it there till, oh, spring. And maybe I'll try and get around to the back yard hose and sprinkler till, oh, spring. He now sits in front of the computer with a pillow on his chair. I took it off and threw it on the floor, and maybe I'll just forget to put it back. And now, come to think of it, he hates it when I'm working on the computer this late (I'm typing this at a bit past 3 in the morning).
But you know what's the best way to get back at my asshole dad? Not moving out. Yeah, that's why he's so perturbed. So I'll just continue to not move out.
No comments:
Post a Comment