Dad

What can I say, apparently I’m feeling kind of sentimental and share-y (share-ish?) today.

I think part of it comes from the shared project of ripping out carpet and drywall and finally dealing with a basement water leakage problem that has existed for quite some time. Leaving something like this is VERY odd for my dad…normally he’s planning shit years in advance.

You may think I’m kidding. I’m not. Years.

And yet, this has been allowed to fester and get worse over the past few years. I’m not sure why, perhaps it’s a bit of an ‘out of sight, out of mind’ thing since he doesn’t spend much time down there. Anyway, that’s not exactly the point of this (I’ll probably blog about this project in the future, though).

He and I actually get along really well these days, but that was far from the case in the past. There are several holes in the walls down there, one of which I created with my foot after he and I had had yet another row. To say I hated him at one point of my life would not count for an exaggeration at all. And I’m pretty sure the feeling was mutual.

My dad used to be an absolute perfectionist to the point of insanity. He would load so much stress on himself to get everything PERFECT that you could practically see him wilting under the burden that he’d loaded up on his own back. And he didn’t keep it to just him…he passed that along to all of us, too. I resented the Hell out of the fact that it seemed like nothing every lived up to expectations, and being a stupid teenager I came up with just the PERFECT solution :

I’ll just stop trying.

Yes indeed, if he wants perfection I will just stop attempting to even achieve anything remotely approaching that! HAHA! Needless to say, this choice was not exactly met with exuberant joy. Things got worse…and worse…and worse (and this is coming from someone who was arrested for shoplifting at the age of 10 and spent time in a holding cell). Then, when I turned 19, things took a weird turn upwards.

It was right around my 19th birthday that I headed out to Ontario with him after his mother died. It was kind of a strange trip with a lot of traveling around and him talking about his childhood and what his dad was like and things like that. I guess the death of his mom had him feeling like reminiscing, and it was actually pretty cool hearing all of these stories…not so cool was him kicking my hotel room bed at 6:30 (not realizing I was awake the whole time), then when I ‘woke up’ saying “Oh, you’re awake! Well, may as well get breakfast, then!” My dad is an early riser to the point of ridiculousness…if he has to work at 7 am, he’s up at 3:30. I, on the other hand, look at mornings as something evil and best avoided.

Aside from that, though, it was a good trip. I also learned that if you get him and the aunts a little drunk, you start to hear the GOOOOOOD stories…the ones you aren’t supposed to hear. And the stuff he pulled in his younger days makes me look like a saint by comparison.When we got back, things seemed good. Unfortunately, nothing had really changed so the pendulum inevitably swung back to ‘suck’ as be both headed down the same divergent roads we had been on before.

Some of you reading this remember Jake. The creator of Jake-o-nomics, and a man who actually managed to rip off Amway, Jake was certainly a unique person. He’s also the reason I despise the movie Braveheart to this very day. Anyway, I spent a little while living with the guy. I didn’t particularly want to, but I had to get the fuck out of the house before one of us…either my dad or I…killed the other person.

This time, we actually started dealing with things. I realized that the whole ‘Set myself up to fail’ thing was really, really stupid. And for the first time, I think my father took stock of the way he was. He told me during dinner one night a few months after I’d left (we met from time to time and just kind of chatted about things) that he had realized he was like his father, and he hated his father. Now, I never knew my grandfather on that side of the family…he was dead before I was even born. I DO know that it seems he was not exactly a popular dude.

And I’ll give dad credit…a lot of that perfectionism really has disappeared since he talked to me about that. He seems a lot less stressed about everything…there are things he frets needlessly about, but that’s just who he is. At least it isn’t universal any more.

So, we basically ‘started over’ again. And this time it hasn’t led to impending bloodshed or boiling rage. We both basically stopped actively trying to antagonize one another…amazing what that will do in terms of making things better. I guess we both decided that we weren’t always going to like the other person, but we might as well get to a point where we could be in a room with each other and enjoy it.

And as time passed, we actually DID start liking being in a room together. Since that period of time when I was housed with an insane person with an obsession with Braveheart, things haven’t taken a swing back the other way. And that’s awesome.

Now, my dad still definitely has his…quibbles. Two recent examples.

-We had just torn away a bunch of drywall, revealing mold all over the plastic vapor barrier. Dad was talking about the plan from this point forward and said “I don’t think the insulation will be moldy since it isn’t organic or anything.” He said this while looking at a PLASTIC vapor barrier covered in black mold. I just kinda smiled and nodded. Whatever you say, pops. Of course, the insulation was inundated with mold and has since been removed.

-I made dinner one night not too long ago, pasta in sauce made from scratch. Dad serves himself up, then says “You know what would be great with this…” I knew something horrible was coming, but even I wasn’t prepared for him to come back with an unwrapped cheez slice and drop that in the middle of the meal on his plate. I was actually shocked in to silence for a few moments. Even for my dad (a man whose food tastes are…strange. This is a man who still asks for hot dogs as dinner on a regular basis, and enjoys cream sauce on EVERYTHING. Seriously, EVERYTHING…he steams carrots, then covers them in ‘from a packet’ hollandaise.), this was just insanity. I believe my response was “You know, mom and I can eat the grown up food…I’m sure there’s some Kraft Dinner in the pantry that you could make for yourself.” He chuckled…I wasn’t entirely kidding.

So yeah, my father is an interesting guy. The difference is, I no longer take these various character foibles and the like as something to get ANGRY about. Now, they’re just amusing. Like the way everything has to be planned far in advance…or, in dad parlance, we have to flange it. I don’t know why in the Hell he says that, but ALL of us say it now in a sort of comedic jibe/tribute. It isn’t annoying if you can chuckle about it.

I think every guy has their disagreements with their dad (I still chuckle at the memory of an irate Liam showing up on the doorstep many moons ago, steaming over his dad getting pissed because he’d sent Liam to KFC and Liam returned without ‘any fucking gravy’)…it’s a part of growing up. They want you to do big things, and you’re a teenage retard who’s stupid enough to think that you already are. I don’t know that every guy’s fatherly disputes reach the level that mine did with my dad. But I’m glad we got past that.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled assemblage of drooling over games, F-bombs and obscene jokes.