3 Bad Habits & the Family Meeting
Let me tell you how these three bad habits are getting me in trouble:
- I don’t listen to my wife;
- I don’t call anyone;
- I don’t invite anyone into my home.
My wife says, “Call your dad.”
“Why?”
“Because he likes when you call. And when you don’t, he acts wacky.”
“But if I don’t have anything to say, I feel goofy. What am I going to say, “Hi Dad. This is your weekly call.’?”
“That’ll work.”
I don’t listen to her. It’s a bad thing not to listen to your wife. Wives know things; guys are idiots. Period.
Here’s the deal, I call two people: my wife and my girlfriend. That’s it.
Well, sometimes I’ll call Will to tell him I’m playing golf on Wednesday. Or Georgie to telling him that I’m playing on Saturday. I’ll call James to see if he wants to “roll around tonight” (play jiu jitsu). Maybe my sister once every three months. And my brother-in-law Ronnie sometimes.
That’s it.
Oh. My girlfriend is my friend since grade school. He’s not a girl. My children call him Unky Rich (his children call me Unky Jim). My daughter calls him my “girlfriend,” because I’ll talk to him on the phone for two hours about absolutely nothing.
My dad? The only time I really call him is when I feel guilty about not calling him. And I feel goofy when I do it.
He also gets upset when I don’t invite him to things like birthdays and holidays. Even though I have. And he rarely shows up. In the last two years, he’s been to my step-sister’s house in San Francisco more times than he’s visited my children an hour-and-a-half away. (My father lives in Pennsylvania; I live in New Jersey.)
But that’s a different story.
The truth is, I don’t invite anyone in to my home … not for specific events. I have told everyone I know, from my family to my employees to the elementary school principal down the road: My home is open, if you are in the area, pop on in. We have cake to celebrate the birthdays of the people in our family, come on by and celebrate with us; if enough people show up we’ll order pizza. Thanksgiving is at my house, if you’re coming let us know. Christmas too.
You need to understand, this is how I was raised. There were no invitations, family and friends just showed up. Times have changed, I know; but I haven’t.
So now I haven’t listened to my wife. I haven’t called my dad. I haven’t invited him to my house. Now he’s called a family meeting.
A family-fuck-meeting. Oh, he didn’t say that to me. He said, “When I get back from California (see above), I’d like us all to get together and have dinner.” He tells my sister, “We need a family meeting to clear the air.”
I’m 43-years-old. The only family meetings I go to are chaired by me. They start and end with, “You kids listen to me and your mom. Now go to your rooms.”
Here, I’ll clear the air:
Dad, my wife tells me to call you. I don’t. I call Unky Rich and say, “My wife says I should call my dad. What the hell am I supposed to say to him.” It doesn’t mean I’m not thinking of you, I am.
As a matter of fact, why don’t you stop by? Two of the kids have birthdays this month. Mine is next month. Why don’t you stop by for cake? Maybe I’ll buy a couple of pizzas.
If you liked that, maybe you will like this:
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- Nonsequitors for 2008-05-22
- 5 Places I Have Lived
- Elvis, Unky Rich, and Me
- There Is a Reason It’s Called Dope
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