Okay. So unlike other Father's Day rants, this really doesn't have anything to do with me being a father. Rather, it has everything to do with my Father and spending a day down in Corvallis with my parents.
First of all, my dad has always kind of been a jerk. Usually it isn't mean spirited, just that he has no idea how his words and actions impact others. But yesterday he turned it up to 11.
So, may parents have an older corgi. She's 13 years old, her hind legs don't work all that well and she's half blind. She's still a happy go lucky dog, and doesn't seem to be in any pain, it's just hard for her to walk and see. So within the first 10 minutes of my being at my parents house, my dad goes out on the balcony, and the dog goes to go out with him, but ends up getting underfoot. This causes my dad to loose his cool, and he starts to yell at her, and goes to kick her, checks himself when he realizes that there are people watching, and end up sort of violently scoots her out of the way. The day kind of goes downhill from there.
At one point, I'm just chlling in front of their TV (this nice huge 70 inch thing) and he goes back out on the porch and takes his shop vac and starts vacuuming. So I turn the volume up to hear the show. He comes back in and says to me, "Geez, you're just as deaf as your mother." I look at him and say, "Well, I couldn't hear it over the shop vac." His response? "Oh, Boo-hoo, poor baby!" I wasn't complaining. I was just telling him why I turned it up so loud.
The icing on the cake, however, was during dinner we were talking about my son's facial hair. He decided he wanted to go all Wolverine and grow out his mutton chops instead of shaving. We, as parents, didn't have a problem with this. Especially with me being trans and my wife being andro, who are we ones to judge how he decides to present himself? Anyway. That's beside the point. During this discussion, my dad turns to me and asks, "So, when are you going to grow your beard back out." Now, if I hadn't had come out to him three months ago, I wouldn't have been bothered by this, but I had come out to everybody around the table. So after a bit of awkward silence, I tell him, "Uh. Never." His response was, "Oh, right. That's not part of your 'persona'." I honestly had no idea what to say to him.
Usually I can stand my dad, but yesterday I just wanted to get out of that house as fast as humanly possible. It wasn't just me he was being nasty to, as well. He was kind of that way with my wife and son. Augh!
