Sunday, Aug. 21, 2005
Instead of a fresh can of whoop-ass, I opened a three-year-old can of olives.
“You threw an olive at him?” My mother screeched, staring at me as though I had just grown a third eye.
“Yes! I threw an olive at him! It was the only thing he had to eat!” I punctuated this sentence with wild hand gestures, causing my arm-fat to jiggle at a very high speed. “Because God-forbid he actually has something lurking around his house that isn’t stuffed with ground beef or didn’t expire back in 2002.”
“Well at least you weren’t eating something harder, or something that involved a fork.” Mom shrugged.
Okay, one incident ten- maybe even eleven- years ago and I still have yet to live it down. I was six and my dad had just told me that I was grounded from TV. “NO!!!” I kept screaming over and over again. Dad then decided that the best course of action would be to literally pick me up and carry me from my play-tea party to my room. Being the little ball of angry spoiled brat that I was, I threw a fork at him. I missed his left foot by about three feet, but that was about the point in time when my parents decided to put me into therapy.
Still, I was fuming. I tried to come up with something funny and witty to say. Damn my brain for working slow and becoming easily consumed with anger! So I did what comes naturally to any teenager who’s been in some form of anger management and/or therapy since a tender young age; I flipped my mom the bird and ran off into the bottomless pit that was my room.
“I am so angry,” the thoughts literally poured out of my mouth, “that I could literally-“ and here I made a sound akin to something that of a drowning cat.
Okay, so here’s what happened.
I realized that trying to get anyone to go shopping with you on a Sunday afternoon is like pulling teeth, and went over to Dad’s house so he can fix the air-conditioning in my car and because he promised me decent food. Upon arrival I ogled the floor tile and thanked him for the free food and did everything else that a good daughter is supposed to do. Then, he brings out this enormous beef-thing and tells me to dig in.
Uh- no. Slight problem- I don’t eat beef. It’s not so much by choice anymore since I recently found out that my stomach can no longer digest anything tougher than a Chicken McNugget, nonetheless beef. (Remember [info]x0_simplicity? You were there when I decided it’d be a good idea to eat a double quarter-pounder with cheese.) And I’ve kind of had this neo-vegetarianism thing going on since I was about eleven. So everyone knows about it, right? Wrong. Dad can’t remember it to save his life. So I sweetly smile and tell him that while I’m grateful he thought to get me food, I unfortunately could not consume that large mass of dead cow.
Being that he is my dad, I then rummage through his refrigerator. Nothing is there, and I mean nothing. The most exciting thing he has is a jar of mayonnaise that has turned purple with age. Next was the pantry. Cereal bought before Mom and I moved out? Check. Animal Crackers that I remember buying for a New Years Party the year I started dating Cody? Check. Jell-O that you actually have to make and don’t come in a nice little cup for you? Check. Then, in the back of the pantry I spy with my little eye something that looked edible: and my stomach growled in agreement. There, a can of Olives with a smattering of Aunt Jemima dust covering its Mario labeled soul. I check the expiration date- 2008! I immediately crack the bad-boy open and dump it’s contents into a plastic cup.
I was excited, I was elated, I was going to fucking kill my father if he dared said anything about how pussies are the only ones who have digestive tracts that cannot handle real-food. Annnnnnnnnnnd he did. And then came the lecture on being a brat, and ungrateful.
That’s great. I can handle these because I know the words by heart and occasionally find myself mouthing them along with him. But then he lecture that I was not expecting came around. “Anna, you need to help me convince your mother to move back in here.”
What?! Did he just- yes, yes he did. He continued, “I need for you and your mother to quit fighting. I need for you to agree to move back in, because you’re the only thing preventing Susy from moving back in. We can’t fight all of the time. We’re a family, just like Wally and Beaver and June and Mr. Cleaver.”
Wait a minute. You’re all thinking ‘The Cleavers?’ Yes, the Cleaver family. My father had just referred to us- the family that doesn’t believe it’s real food unless there’s cheese on it- as the Cleavers.
“I think that we should go on a- a fishing trip, to bond. The three of us bonding together as a family, and when we do bond, you’re going to keep your mouth shut. You’re going to leave that damned lap-computer at home, you’re going to turn off your phone, and you are going to fish.”
“I don’t advocate the killing of innocent animals.” I said- olive in mouth. This was an automated response when the words fishing, hunting, or road kill were introduce into the conversation.
This was not my brightest moment, as was evident when my father screamed the words, “WHY CAN’T YOU BE NORMAL LIKE THAT GUSTAFSON KID IS?!?” Here, I should explain to you that my Dad takes Jeff Gustafson fishing. But I won’t.
“BECAUSE I DON’T WANT TO END UP A DEAD-BEAT-DAD AT THE AGE OF TWENTY-THREE!” I screamed back. I then reached for the nearest thing (an olive) and threw it at him. I grabbed my keys and left, clipping the two-foot-long bass fish mail-box on my way out.
Dad called Mom while I was on my way home. He’s more than a little mad that I chipped some of the paint off of his mailbox. Never-mind the fact that my side-view mirror is cracked, because he has to send his mailbox back to the Bass Pro Shops in order to get one without chunks of paint missing. When I stormed in the front door, Mom laughed and told me about how pissed he was. I told her what happened.
“You threw an olive at him?” My mother screeched, staring at me as though I had just grown a third eye.
theparisian at 11:56 p.m.