Let's All Hate My Father

This happened a few days ago. I've calmed down now, to the point of passive resentment.

Last week, Daddums called me up and told me he thinks I drink too much, and it's been bothering him a long time, and he just "had to say something."

I sat quietly and listened to his lecture. I resisted the urge to hang up the phone, to yell at him, or make any kind of justification-type argument against his accusations.

All I told him was that he's wrong. And I followed that up with assurance that I'd talk to the Jesus of Cheese about it and if HE felt it was a problem, and that I wasn't facing reality, that the Jesus of Cheese had my permission to call Daddums.

I only did that last part to give my father a false sense of control.

Now I'll back up a bit. My father has, in his lifetime, written me ONE letter (he was sending me money in college, and my mom told him not to just send the check but include a note with it.)

And he has called me ONE other time.

That time, he called me at work at the public library while I was working the reference desk, and made me cry. That lecture was about how I wasn't earning enough money and that I had to figure out how to manage my debts better because HE certainly didn't intend to help me. (I was working 60 hours a week at 3 different jobs at the time.)

Both times, both phone calls, happened when he was trying to quit smoking. Last time, he was on nicotine patches, but that was before they figured out that Wellbutrin should be taken at the same time, so that the person quitting doesn't experience "illogical negative emotions and thoughts."

This time, he was taking that new type of prescription, but he finished the standard 3 months of it and didn't renew it.

Whatever.

So I talked to the Jesus of Cheese, who laughed at the accusation. And this is the [non-drinking] guy who lives with me and deals with my insanity and beer obsession and neglect of housekeeping, on a daily basis. He has a clue. My dad, who only sees me maybe 10 days a year, doesn't. He spends most of those 10 days counting how many beers I consume.

"So how do you feel about this, BeerPup?"

How do I feel? I don't know. I wonder, though, what other things I do that are unacceptable to my father. I didn't know I was such a horrible person. Good thing he's around to tell me.

Asshole.