Once upon a time I really and truly hated my Dad. Actually, it was between 1988 and 1992, on and off, when I just couldn't seem to get it together in higher education, nor love, nor career. A few months of halfheartedly hanging out, no income, no rent, sleeping all day and avoiding family contact as much as possible while living in my parents' basement...
At first, I suppose, he just wanted to help me out of the funk. Obviously, I wasn't happy. He tried to engage me with discussion of relativity and spacetime and such, but these weren't really relevant to my existential crisis as I saw it. Besides, my high-school physics far outstripped his dumbed-down-for-television understanding of the subjects.
After the failed quest for understanding came the SLAVERY. I was "forced" to dig ditches, paint, and clean basements at his rental properties; I was reduced to doing paste-up and couriering the resulting mechanical art to his client. In return, he had the nerve to pay me and help me get my car running.
But in the months of SLAVERY, I carefully nursed a silent rage. Whatever the conversational gambit, I minimized my response, and rejected offers of sharing and time. I hated myself for dropping my guard long enough to laugh at a casual joke. -Maybe as much as I hated him. |
