Looking back, I picked the fight. It was stupid, and I was bored. Of late I have turned into an awful person, catty and passive aggressive to an unbelievable degree, the byproduct of fashion blogs and too much Gossip Girl. No, not true; it’s what happens when nothing is happening, ennui and complacency gripping me in a choke-hold. (I can’t even rise about the filth of mixed metaphors.)
The kitchen smelled like basil. I resisted saying something saccharine, like there’s nothing better in the universe than the mixture of garlic and basil. Trite; meaningless and hollow; not relevant to this conversation, except trying to sound cultured and sophisticated and better.
“So,” he began.
I shifted on the stool. “Yes.”
“You’ve got a birthday coming up.”
“I know…”
The water for the shrimp was beginning to simmer, and he turned down the heat. I knew I was being difficult. “Any ideas on what you might want?”
I hated this conversation, for a number of reasons – the first of which being that we’d had it already. “I told you. I want a Wii.”
And he laughed, shaking his head and standing there, laughing derisively, knowing it was what I was going to say. It pissed me off. It pushed every button in me, and it really, really pissed me off. That stupid fucking laugh. Cheryl turned the food processor on, halting the conversation for a few moments, and I decided to do it.
“Can I ask you something?” He said sure. “What makes this so ridiculous to you? I asked for the same thing for Christmas and my birthday last, and you always have the same reaction.”
He tapped the spoon on the edge of the pot, drying his hand on a dish towel and then turning to face me. Arms crossed across his chest, leaning back against the counter, all his weight shifted to his left leg; I’ve come to know this as my father’s most aggressive body language. “How much does this – device thing cost nowadays?”
In hindsight, I can diagram this exchange. The compound predicate is his unwillingness to say the word, instead using “device thing” as a sort of mockery; a put-down.
I bit my lip. “Two-fifty. Same as it’s always been.”
(My future lawyer-y self interrupts our story with a whistle: “What?” “He’s good.” “Huh?” “Money. That’s a bad position to argue from, as far as you’re concerned. You were toast.” “Fuck you.”)
He shifted to his right leg. “And when have you ever received a $250 gift from someone?”
The K.O. punch, ladies and gentlemen.
Many things flitted through my mind, although regrettably not a single one was something witty or worthy of a zinger. I thought about the opera and play tickets my mother had just bought us, half my birthday and half just because; surely that came somewhere near the 250-mark. I thought about the laptop I had received for graduation. I even managed to take a step bad, hating myself being some petulant little girl who’s only upset because her daddy won’t buy her something shiny woe is me I just want a pony why won’t you buy me a pony, you’re an awful human being, starving kids in Africa and what not.
I sputtered around for something decent to say, and he interpreted my silence for me: “There, see? You haven’t.”
And finally: I thought, what an incredibly heartless and blatantly mean thing for a father to say to his only child. Cheryl shifted awkwardly at the food processor.
I ended it there, saying something I wished was better worded, like, “Anything I say, you’ll take to sound like I’m a spoiled brat, so. Whatever. We’re done.”
The dinner conversation spun off into other things, politics and things. The four of us fell into a decent rhythm, laughing, and my father sat in silence, eating and just listening. We started into Sarah Palin. It wasn’t high brow political analysis, but it was all right. Someone asked to pass the bread, and the conversation ceased for an instant. So he pounced:
“Do you remember Moody?”
I did, but at the moment I was stuck on the Governor of Alaska’s position on Israel, so I didn’t follow. “Huh? Uh. No?”
“Moody, you know. Jim Moody. Guy whose store I worked in in high school.”
Moody is a mythical figure in the life of my father, a hippie with a junk store in the middle of Ohio in 1968. I always picture Moody reigning over a group of adoring high school boys, buying them beer and teaching them essential skills like properly rolling a joint. Every parent’s nightmare.
“Oh, right.”
“When we were in Ohio, Cheryl and I went to see him about picking up some of the tools and things from Grandpa’s basement, but he wasn’t there. Came by a day later, though.” He told this part like I hadn’t been on the trip with him, which I was. I was confused.
“Ah,” I nodded. He seemed to be waiting for something, and I added, “What’s – that got to do with anything? Sorry.”
He shrugged, defensive. “It doesn’t, really. It’s just that it turns out he’s got a pretty bad form of cancer.”
It had nothing to do with anything, I realized, except that the conversation with now about my father, and not our rather dreadful impressions of Tina Fey.
It’s not about the money, you know. It’s not about entitlement, or being a spoiled only child who is so used to getting what she wants that she is incensed – incensed! – when someone dare not buy her something she asks for, especially when she has to ask multiple times.
The answer should have been:
“You know I would buy it for a second if you could, really, I’d buy you anything if I could, but right now I just can’t afford something that’s $250. You understand, right?” (Yes. I do.)
Or:
“It’s just that $250 is a bit much. Since I know you seem to really want this… what if we went 50/50? Think we could work something out?” (Yes, we could.)
Because the answer is never:
“I think it’s ridiculous for you to assume you’re worth something that costs $250.”
About once every six months or so, my inferior complex regarding my other friends’ blog attempts and success becomes too much to deal with, and I reinvent this blog; this journal, this log, this recording of whatever ambient awareness B.S. I feel needs to be shared. It’s a vicious cycle, and. Here we go again.
