I say high, you say low, you say why

[austin_dern]

My father is upset that I do not say ``hello'' to him when I enter the house, or ``goodbye'' when I leave, at least not loud enough for him to hear. If I were feeling nasty and hurtful I would point out directly to him that it is not possible to say these things loud enough for him to hear, as he hasn't worn the hearing aid he needs since Ford pardoned Nixon. Oddly enough, my brother came to my defense and pointed out that I've just come off of ten years of living exclusively by myself, and then for six years before that living in dorm rooms where you can tell your roommate when you're leaving or where you're going but that doesn't mean he'll find that information at all interesting. (Other people may have more social connections with their roommates; mine, we'd just kind of be in the same room and that was fine. My roommate senior year as an undergraduate I never met, since he went to bed possibly before sunset, and I'd rarely be back in before midnight -- student newspaper, you see -- and he went home -- I assume -- every single weekend without fail.)

According to my mother, I managed -- quite inadvertently -- to drive my father crazy the other day when I did happen to say bye before going out, and I left for several hours, and didn't say a word about where I was going. I assumed that it really would not be the least bit interesting to them. Apparently, my father got into a round of his high-grade sulking by thinking about what an awful thing it was to do to my mother to leave her wondering where I might be going, how long I might be out, what I might be doing, without even a thought for her natural parental nerves. My mother's actual feelings about this were that I probably had a fair idea where I wanted to go and would be back when I was done with what I liked and I was certainly old enough to drive the car successfully and to call if I needed help so there wasn't anything for her to worry about.

Sometime when I wasn't looking living with my parents turned into living in middle school.

Given that I've effectively had to give up watching the silent movies from Turner Classic Movies' Sunday night block, since the Tivo deletes them before I have an uninterrupted two hours free because it's filled up with every episode ever made of The New Yankee House Rock Wallpapering In Excruciating Detail, I don't mind getting a few underhanded digs back at him, but this is all still really silly.

Trivia: The last lawsuits from Jay Gould and Jim Fisk's attempt to corner the market in gold in September 1869 were not settled until 1877. Source: The Great Game, John Steele Gordon.

Currently Reading: The Door Into Fire, Diane Duane.

Comments

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

I think there's a certain degree of this that happens with all parents. I finally, at 32, have Mom'goose understanding that a note that says "Road Trip. Be back Tuesday." means I'm on a road trip and will be back Tuesday, and she won't start really fretting until Wednesday. (as recently happened.)

My current offset schedule to Mom's.. much like that roommate of yours has.. means that aide from days off me leaving the house is not an issue though. And on those days off, I usually let her know where I'm going as part of regular conversation. Of course, she asks where i'm going, a simple and expedient step, and wise of the woman.

..and hmmm. Would your Dad notice spontaneous deletion of those episodes, or Tivo set to 'keep at most 5 episodes'? (This is not an issue currently at my house, as I paid for the tiVo and do most of the programming. Mom of course does most of the watching of TV, but is polite about letting my shows record, in most cases.)

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

I expect, and I mean to allow for, some more protectiveness from my parents since I did go off and spend six years living on another continent with rare chances for phone calls or forms of physical contact. But on the other hand, there's really very little reason to think that whether I'm going to this one mall or the other is all that interesting, particularly when I haven't really decided until I get to the highway.

I doubt my father would notice spontaneously disappearing shows, but it is rude to do. I've been tempted to dump the Sunday morning screaming shows when I can, but haven't quite got there yet.

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

Sometimes parents are interested in that sort of small talk. I'll generally try to outline my plans, with the inclusion of "And maybe more other shopping or dining while at it" to cover most daily excursions.

As for rudeness.. a bit, but not greatly so. Understandably, as it's not-your-tiVo, it's less tactful. Getting away with it depends on if these shows are really episodic, and are being actually watched. Mmm.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

See, I'm just not good at small talk. I know I can make it look like I am, but that's mostly a matter of convincing someone else to talk about themselves and riffing loosely on that. When it comes to talking about myself, it's pretty much the day's effort to come up with 450 words for here, and that when I have antics going on that can be turned into easy stories.

The shows are very episodic, and also repeated very often, and I'm not sure they have ever made a new episode. I believe if they were all deleted the same lineup would re-appear within two weeks.

[orv.livejournal.com]

I think you need your own place. ;)

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

That's certain. It's just implementation details I haven't worked out yet.

[bailiff.livejournal.com]

>Sometime when I wasn't looking living with my parents turned into living in middle school.

When does it ever stop being that way? :)

Being Chinese gives the old Hello/Goodbye issue a different twist... I don't know if it's just me, but every time somebody says "Drive carefully!" just before I go, I hear the adjunct "...or you'll die horribly in a nasty car accident" in my head. Which for the Chinese is tantamount to a curse, so I do wish people would stop expressing their good wishes.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

I hadn't considered that twist on that sort of comment, actually, despite years of semi-oblivious Singaporean life. On the other hand I feel like just saying ``take care'' to someone comes out sounding imperious so I soften it with a ``please'' or an ``I hope you'' or so on. I know this makes me sound wishy-washy, but I hate pushing people around if I can avoid it.

[c-eagle.livejournal.com]

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[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

?

[c-eagle.livejournal.com]

...thish ish jus' kinda a sad posting, and I didn' rilly know wut to say or how to fix it, so I just growled atcher parents a lil bit. *pip*

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Oh, it's not really sad around here, just ... we get into these weird little spots. Finding ways to drive one another crazy is part of the survival process.