Second Language

Dad is a Greek. He didn't learn English until his thirties. This means he makes mistakes when speaking English. For instance, he warns people not to "bark at the wrong tree." Similarly, today he told me not to invite too many people to my wedding. After all, "you don't want to make this your big, Greek, fat wedding."

That got me thinking: I'm going to start cooking french fries in Greek-fat. Yum!

Dadecdote: It's My Life!

Back when I was visiting my parents, a couple of weeks ago, I decided I would mail a lot of my books from my old home to my new office in California.

The process started with the usual missteps: I first went to Office Depot (with Dad) to buy big boxes. I had a lot of books, after all, so the more space, the better, right?!

Well, obviously not. Books, I should remember, are heavy. Boxes are made out of cardboard, which is the Unitarianism of the board-world; in other words, weak. Of course, I didn't make this realization until after I had assembled all five of these big boxes and filled them up with books. As they ripped to shreds in my hands, I thought: "this probably won't make it through the shipping stage."

So I went to U-Haul. I decided to buy some book-boxes. They worked well, but I didn't buy enough. So on a Thursday, I thought to myself: I'm going to go to the post office, mail out the boxes I filled, buy more boxes at U-Haul, fill those, and then mail those out. The problem was, reality intervened.

So here's the nub or the story, the "reality" part. Our insane Romanian housekeeper [IRH] was raising hell again, complaining about something or other. Probably her car costs, or that she wasn't appreciated. Or she was telling Dad how the financial markets worked. Whatever. In any case, as I was getting ready to go mail my boxes to the post-office, Dad asked me:

Dad: San [son], do you want me to go weeth [with] you?
Me: Uh...why?
Dad: To help you!

I thought about this for a second. I know for a fact that Dad is a squirrely guy, so I was thinking: maybe he wants to get out of being around our housekeeper? It would be a fairly sensible thing to want; he can't very well say, "I must leave the presence of thees annoying woman", so he was being canny. Good for him!

Me: Yeah, that'd be good. You should come along.
Dad: OK! I will get ready.

While Dad got ready, I put the boxes I had ready in order. All told, there were seven boxes. At this point, IRH got in on the act.

IRH: Robert, you can't take all these boxes een your car!
Me: Uh...why not?
IRH: Because zere are too many of them!

Then Dad rejoined the party.

Dad: Yes, san, you should not take so many boxes.
Me: Yeah, why is that again?
Dad: Because you cannot feet them in your car.
Me: Actually, I'm pretty sure I can...
IRH: Your father eez right. You need to put some of ze boxes een your car, and some een hees.
Dad: No, you should take four today, and take the rest on Saturday.
IRH: No, you cannot take zem on Saturday, ze Post Office ees closed on Saturday because eet ees ze day after ze Fours of July!
Dad: They are not...closed...on...Saturday.
IRH: Yes, zey are! Take two cars today.
Dad: No, san, we will take two trips, today and tomorrow.

Now, you have to admire the underlying premise of the conversation between these two accented crackpots. Whatever the case with the boxes, one thing was for sure: I couldn't do this alone, and I couldn't do it in one trip. Even though seven boxes of books would easily fit in my car, both Dad and IRH knew that, even if I somehow managed to fit all seven boxes in my car, once I got to the Post Office, I would be completely flustered. I have no idea what they thought would happen; would I get to the Post Office, then just leave? Would I go in and just throw the boxes all around? Would I place them on the floor and look at them blankly, wondering why the magical postal fairies hadn't taken them away?

Long story short, I ended up taking two trips. Remember, I had to get more boxes anyway, and with Dad in the car, that would just be too much to explain. So I went to the Post Office, mailed off "ze boxes", and went home; before Dad and I left, though, we were sure to check the hours on July 5. Sure enough, the Post Office was open that day.

When we returned home, I informed IRH of the Post Office's hours. "Zat ees strange," she said. "Zey must have changed them zis year!" Ah, yes. She must have been right all along but for some freakish decision by the Post Office to take away days off from their employees.

By the way, at the Post Office I asked Dad why he was so intent on coming with me. It was to escape IRH, right? "No," Dad says. "I just thought you needed to be able to pay for the boxes." Ah, that was why I couldn't do it alone--because I wouldn't be able to figure out that transactions require an exchange of goods and services!*

All these years, I thought Mom and Dad were both crazy. It turns out, Mom didn't start out crazy; she was driven to it by Dad.



*--I know, I know, he was just paying for the boxes to be nice, not because he literally thought I didn't know how to buy things. I just like my uncharitable way of putting things better for the purpose of my story.

Preferences: A Dadecdote

So, as I think I've mentioned somewhere before, Dad has this interesting quirk where he thinks his preferences are shared by everyone else.

For example, at a Christmas party last year, a group of us were holding different conversations in the living room. Dad leaves the room, goes upstairs, and returns with a CD. I don't remember what was on the CD--most likely something from Caesaria Evora--but he walked over to the computer (where I was sitting), handed me the CD, and told me to play it. Now, keep in mind that delightful Christmas music was already playing (at a low level), but because I was under orders, and because I know resistance to Dad's orders is futile, I replaced it with his CD. However, I played it at the same low level I had played the Christmas music.

Unfortunately, this was not good enough for Dad. After all, he could still hear the conversations over the music. Naturally enough, he told me to turn the volume up on the CD, so that everyone could enjoy the music. He didn't ask anyone whether this was OK; that didn't occur to him. He wanted to hear the music so he assumed everyone else did too.

This lack of empathy can sometimes be annoying, especially when combined with other of Dad's goals. For example, if he wants Chinese food (as he always does), he'll ask, "would you like Chinese food?" If you say yes, he'll say, "Okay, let's go", and then we'll go to the Chinese restaurant (there's only one we ever go to).

If you say, "no, I'm not in the mood", he'll ask, "are you sure?" If you say you are, he'll ask you, "how can you be so sure?" If you're honest with yourself, you will admit that it's possible that Chinese food would hit the spot after all; so you're not certain that you don't want Chinese food. And Dad then seems to hold the premise, "if something is possible, then we should treat it as if it's real." That is, he invokes radical Cartesian skepticism, as long as doing so results in your admitting that it's possible that you actually do want Chinese food. After all, if you don't know, as Descartes did not, whether the external world exists, then it's time to get Chinese food: "I think, therefore I will be hungry again in three hours."

A similar incident happened during this latest trip of mine to visit my parents. I was in the car and Dad asked me whether I wanted to listen to patriotic American music. I said, "sure, that's fine". He then tried to put the CD in the player but had a little trouble, so I took it from him and put it in myself. Since I was the one who put it in the player he said, "you really want to listen to this music!"

[You might be wondering: how does his assumption that all people have his preferences result in his regular corralling of you into admitting that you, after all, want Chinese food? Simple: he assumes that if he wants it, you want it too; so if you say you don't want it, you're either lying or self-deceived. He's just trying to get you to admit your preference, in the interest of full disclosure. In this sense, Dad is a dogged truth-seeker.]

Anyway, like I was saying, this lack of empathy can sometimes be annoying, but it can also be useful. A few days ago our insane Romanian cleaning lady was whining, all day, about how her car was damaged, and she needed $300 to fix it. She complained about this from 3 pm to 8:30 pm. For some reason, from 8 to 8:30 she started demeaning herself, saying how stupid she was (I assume she was doing this in order to garner pity, pity that could then be directed to fixing her car). Dad asked her why she thought this. She said she didn't know. Then, in the hopes of cheering her up, dad said she did a good job cleaning today. She countered that he must have thought all her other cleanings were sub-par. He said, "oh, then I mean today that you are extra-good." That confused her, and that confusion angered her, so she decided to leave. Later on, I talked with Dad about her, and he said he had no idea why she started belittling herself. I theorized that she was trying to make him feel sorry for her, so he would give her $300. "But why should I do that?", Dad correctly wondered. I said, well, it's far from clear that you should, and she knows that, which is why she didn't ask for the money directly; instead, she tried to get you to give it to her through sheer rhetoric. "Oh", dad said. "I didn't notice."

Why, after all, would he notice? He didn't want to give her any money! And if he didn't want to give her any, she must not have wanted any!

Winter-Spring-Summer Hiatus

Wow. I haven't posted anything here since February 5, 2008. Since then, a lot has happened: I got a job; and I now put two spaces after periods at the end of sentences.

Right now, I'm in the city of my childhood, hanging with the parents, and madness has ensued many times.

Today, mom, dad, and I were watching a commercial for an electric razor.

[REMAINDER REDACTED]

Well, mom has told me that I can't keep this post up. Too embarrassing, I suppose. In Mom's words, "you can't post anything that's private."

We'll see what content this edict leaves me with.