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What Are You, Twelve?
February 22, 2004, 11:33 p.m. Have I mentioned my dad wants us to live in a showroom? He’s got a real cleanliness kick. So this morning, he said he wanted a ‘talk’ with us, my sister and I, about ‘the state of the house’. Tch. From the way he spoke, you’d think we lived in the sort of squalor you see on A Current Affair ‘Tenants From Hell’ special. We don’t, really, it’s just your regular suburban mess. Now, granted, the house could’ve done with a bit of a clean up, and neither my sister or I had a huge problem with that. But the way he went about it! “Now listen, you kids,” he starts belligerently, slapping down a notebook with a list of jobs that need doing. Whoa! Where did this come from? I hate the way he does that – starts off in full-blown defence-mode, like a castle under siege. Hey, we’re not out to get you! We haven’t said a thing yet, but you’re acting like we’re screaming at you, calling you a horrible tyrant and refusing to co-operate. Is this really the best way to go about things? Is this the way you handle the people you work with? No? And why’s that, cause they’re your equals, and they deserve your respect? What the hell are we then? So I tried to calm him down, to break the tension and get him to speak to us rationally, so we could figure this out. But instead he storms off! You know, there’s a word for that: childish. You’re 53! Grow the hell up! Well, the Brat and I shrugged, and looked over the list. A whole lot of jobs obviously intended for us, a whole lot obviously intended for him – like cleaning out the garage and mowing the lawn. We initialled the ones we would do, and I went to have a shower. When I got out, he had split. Which meant, basically, that we did all our jobs, but as he didn’t return till late afternoon, and all his jobs were outside, he didn’t do squat. I think he planned it that way. Probably why he was so belligerent, trying to pick a fight so he could have an excuse to storm off. The funniest thing about this? The fact that neither I nor my sister were at all surprised by his behaviour. It was like it was running to script. The most annoying thing? We were supposed to go shopping today, but despite the fact that he got home in time to go, we didn’t, because he ‘didn’t want to’. So theres little to eat in the house. And the fridge looks even more forlorn and empty because we cleaned it out today, throwing out wrinkled fruit and mouldy dips. Ugh. He’s thirty three years older than me, he’s supposed to be the mature one. I would never dream of behaving in such an . . . infantile manner.
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