My Father is Pissed

This thread is kind of like a Simpsons episode because at the beginning you are going to wonder how in the hell it ties into the point, but just trust me that it does.

I worked from 9 to 6 today, and it is the rare opening shift that I work about once a month. My father picked me up downtown at about five to seven, and we prepared to go to the house where my brother was hosting a barbecue for the basketball team that he is coaching. I arrive at my house to a group of 17-year-old boys who laugh at my jokes. Hooray!

I feel like hot shit because I am wearing my new Hugo Boss suit, but I change into casual clothing and mingle with the kids and their parents, then accidentally poke my brother in the eye. Good times are had by all.



But I cannot help but feel stangely nostalgic! Perhaps it is because it is 75 in Minnesota, and it may as well feel like summer, and at the risk of sounding maudlin, I have not had an enjoyable summer in my life since three years ago, the summer of 2005, when I cashiered at Walgreens and foolishly THOUGHT that life sucked since my three closest friends at the time were living in China, San Diego, and Iran, but in retrospect it is where I grew, not to mention the emotional affair I had with the boy from Texas whose name I still randomly hear when the wind blows.



After the barbecue is over I prepare for an emo walk with my iPod, complete with recently downloaded tunes like "There Is" by Boxcar Racer. As I have made it about half a mile I am approached by my best friend Erin McCloskey from her Ford Taurus just as Mariah Carey is blaring! We venture to Jake's Sports Bar and Grill, my father's home away from home, but the bartender he hates is working, so we go to the Village Pub instead.



Long story short. My father meets us there and we meet up with the pub's owner, whose son is currently living in Los Angeles and doing improv and OH MY GOD LET'S ALL BLOW SMOKE UP HIS ASS and hey you know buddy I could have been something too but now I live with my parents and work at the mall, and Erin goes home because she has been feeling ill for the past ten days but knows it is karma ever since April Fool's Day when she broke up with her boyfriend as a joke and made him cry (yes, in her mind this was hiliarious), and while my father is outside smoking I reunite with Sue, who was a teacher's aide when I was in middle school and would wake me up during math class!

Here is where the conflict ensues. Sue has me talk to Julianne, an acquainance of my father's who ran for City Council the same time he did (they both later lost to the incumbents who have continued to fuck over our fair city, but you can't be bitter forever). Julianne once asked me to baby-sit her twin daughters but later found someone else. I have never really talked to Julianne. She is apparently a bitch when she is drunk.




"My daughters are scared of men," she explains. "But they probably wouldn't be very scared of you."
"Yeah, I'm not like The Hulk...." I downplay in a voice so SUE KNOWS I AM PISSED.
Sue sympathizes with me and Julianne goes to smoke with my father. Upon their return, my father and his cursed weak bladder go off to pee. Julianne returns to Sue and me (who have been having a WONDERFUL! conversation) and I do not know where my father is.

"Where is my father?" I cry.
"Oh my god," Julianne scoffs. "Could you be any gayer?'
"Um, so back to the big dick I was sucking," I immediately respond, and Sue playfully slaps me, and I will never know if this was because she was genuinely offended or to downplay the moment.
"Your father is peeing," Julianne says.
"Well, he has diabetes," I say.
"Really?????" the women gasp.
"Well, Type II, nothing serious," I say.



My father comes out of the bathroom. The women grill him on his diabetes. He is pissed.

"I would appreciate if you wouldn't air my dirty laundry," he says later in the car. "I don't air yours." WELL, MY DIRTY LAUNDRY CAN'T BE TOLD FROM MY VOICE, DAMMIT.
"Well, I was trying to change the subject," I defend. "Julianne made me feel bad."
"Yeah, I smoked with her," my father said. "She was like 'did you know your son is gay?' and I said 'yes, we've known forever'."
"Well, I'M SORRY," I continue. "I was feeling attacked and I wanted to change the subject. Apparently I chose the wrong topic."
"Yeah you did," grumbles my father.
Now I feel bad. And sober, despite the five vodka drinks I had. Ho hum.