Have I ever told you that dear ole dad comes to my house ever Sunday morning without fail? He doesn’t call, you can only guess the time he may show up, and sometimes you have to make it very clear to him not to show up too early if you plan to sleep in. He is a man of routine and does the same thing every Sunday. He gets up, eats his cheerios, reads his Bible passage for the day, and then gets dressed to head out of the house to annoy all his children and grandchildren before settling on a place to eat for lunch, usually a local BBQ place not far from my house.
I’ve had a rocky relationship with my step-father. For all intent and purposes he is Dad. He raised me from three onward and was there for all the big events in my life, like birthdays, dates, and hauling me to the mall every weekend while I was a preteen. There were times I could go to him and not my mother when I got into mischief. I think he was so grateful not to have any teens like him that he was happy to bail us out of some mischievous trouble every now and then.
While Dad was good in other ways, he was a horrible human being to live with. This was partly because he was a disabled Marine. He expected things to be done a certain way. He also believed for the most part that kids should be seen and not heard. He wanted to be respected, even if he did not earn it. My dad is probably one of the racist, sexist human beings I have ever been around. He is full of hate and crazy conspiracy theories that mostly revolve around fundamental religious beliefs – even though he doesn’t go to church. Living him was like living with Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. We walked on egg shells, had bizarre rules, and were barraged with verbal abuse.
When my mother died, Dad you could say turned over a new leaf. Actually he is good at faking it, most of the time. He knew the only way to have access to his grandchildren was to keep his mouth shut. He could not use hate speech and the N word around our children. He could not talk about politics or talk down about women or berate gays. My mother was no longer there to smooth things over and he knew that if he didn’t behave a certain way that we would cut him out of our lives. There have been a few times in the last few years that Mr. K has had to take him outside and have a chat with him about the things that come out of his mouth.
In the past few years dear ole Dad has been slipping. He has these elaborate stories he tells that are a mix of lies and half truths. He tries to say things cunningly to make a point about people of other races or in same sex relationships or to degrade women. He also has some strange religious views and has to include thanking Jesus for everything in his life and cursing the devil for every thing that has ever gone wrong in his life. I’ve let a lot of this slide because my kids are unaware of what he is saying because we just do not talk that way or have those kind of views. I’ve noticed though it is getting more and more frequent too.
The last few times he has come by, which included impromptu visits during the week while I was not expecting visitors, he has took to farting and acting like he isn’t. I am completely disgusted by it and I know he is doing it just to see if I will say something to him. The past two times he was farting so loud and rumbling in the chair that there is no way he didn’t know. A man can not pass that much air out of his ass and not know. I felt the best course of action is just to ignore it, but then on Sunday he stood up and came over to where I was sitting and then said “I have really bad gas.” His ass was literally in my face. I finally said “Daddy you better not fart in my face you need to take your ass to the bathroom.” He just laughed and laughed. It was real comedy for him.
I know some of you reading this are probably thinking I am over thinking his behavior, but I really think he is trying to start an argument or get a rise out of me. He often did this when I was a teen and a young adult, and it often did not end well for him. My wrath and rebellion were nothing compared to my mother who was a horrible grudge holder. Not to mention my brother and Mr. K came close to beating his ass multiple times when he got totally out of hand. I am just frustrated because I wonder how far he is going to go with his lies and rude, disgusting behavior. He is a good grandparent to my children and loves them dearly, but at the same time he isn’t “right” and I do not want his behavior to escalate to where it effects them.
