Typical Of My Dad

(This hap­pened in Chinese.)

Around the din­ner table, my aunt men­tioned that it was her daugh­ter’s birth­day, and that it hap­pened to be Friday the 13th. My dad said to me, “Isn’t your birth­day on the 13th too?”

I don’t know”, I said rather loud and sar­cas­ti­cal­ly.

My dad was in trou­ble. All the fam­i­ly around us real­ized that he does­n’t know my birth­day. So he said a date (and year, as if recit­ing a his­tor­i­cal event) with a hint of uncer­tain­ty in his voice.

I don’t think he was ever more relieved than when I told him he was right. Not because he got the right date, but because he did­n’t seem like such a bad father to every­one else.

4 comments

  1. Old guys don’t remem­ber dates. If you’re mar­ried I’d be sur­prised. Why don’t you talk to him about what’s real­ly both­er­ing you instead of start­ing fires every­where.

    • Bigots don’t try to under­stand sit­u­a­tions before open­ing their mouths and giv­ing their opin­ions on them. Why don’t you learn the com­plex­i­ties of human rela­tion­ships, instead of low­er­ing oth­er peo­ple to your lev­el with gen­er­al­iza­tions and judg­ing oth­ers based on your stan­dards.

  2. I can’t remem­ber a sin­gle date, except for Christmas, my Birthday, and Halloween. My par­ents even have to remind me when my best friend’s Birthday is.

  3. I asked my dad when last I vis­it­ed, just for con­ver­sa­tion’s sake in the car one day, “So Dad, what was I like when I was lit­tle?” Loooooooooooooong pause.

    Um, you don’t remem­ber?” I said after a while.
    “I remem­ber you cried like hell when you got hit with a base­ball bat one day.” he said.
    “THAT’s what you remem­ber about me?” I asked, try­ing not to be hurt.
    “It seemed impor­tant at the time.”

    At least all you guys were dis­cussing was date.

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