parental control

When I visit my sisters, they are always commenting about how they are turning into our mother. I can not vouch for this metamorphosis. Don’t get me wrong. My mother is the epitome of sweetness and conscientiousness. Always concerned about doing the “right thing,” and being there for her family. While there is an ounce of this within me, it’s mainly collecting dust on a shelf, crowded out by the black tar heart inside me.

But I’m sure my sisters are referring to the funny quirks, like the strange habit of starting a conversation with someone and then that person tells her, “I have to meet someone at 9:00.” And she goes on and on with her story even though there’s no one in the room. It’s as if the discussion wasn’t directed at any particular person but a very captivating conversation with herself.

There’s also the cute habit of her saying all things British, like advertisement, aluminum, and herbs (Because it’s got a fucking “h” in it. Thanks, Eddie Izzard). My brother and I used to make fun of her for this and then later realized she picked up on it from watching copious amounts of Masterpiece Theatre. She isn’t being pretentious either; she honestly thinks it’s the only way to enunciate.

But really the weird habits I’ve picked up have been through my father. It’s lately becoming more evident as time wears on, and I both have to laugh at and strangle myself at the same time.

Like most kids, I helped out with the family business in the summers. While for some kids this meant waiting tables or filing papers, this meant helping my dad as an assistant hygienist in his dental office. This was equally amusing and disgusting. The amusing end of the spectrum is discovering the different levels of gagging that people have when an instrument is put in their mouths. Like ticklelishness, there are different ranges. There are those who gag as soon as it is past their teeth and others that can be jabbed in the little ball-hangy thing (a.k.a. the uvula) throats without reacting. The disgusting end of the spectrum is discovering deathfog pockets of chewing tobacco and pus that smell like opossum roadkill.

At the end of the day, after instruments were sterilized and the floors were vacuumed, I would wait for my father in the car. The routine was the same everyday: He would lock the door and then go to the back of the building to turn off and lock up the nitrous oxide (I’m embarrassed to say that I never took advantage of the NO2). Then he would go back to the front door and check the locks. He would enter the car and then look at the front door, “Did I lock those doors?” I would always assure him that yes he did. Then he would get out of the car, check the locks and then return to the car. Sometimes he would leave and sometimes he would question himself and return to the door to check the locks a third or fourth time.

Though annoying, I’m starting this same habit myself with doors. Cars are generally left unlocked in the country -- we never had to worry about our neighbors and strangers breaking into our cars. But it’s a general concern of mine since my car was broken into twice in OKC. The routine is the same: I lock my doors every time I get out of the car. But I check it once, maybe twice. And then, from inside the house, I press the security button just to make sure it’s locked. Sometimes Toombsday and I have driven all the way to Louisville from Indianapolis with me thinking that my doors are unlocked. “You checked them,” he says. But what if I didn’t? “You’re crazy,” he confirms.

Little does he know about the front door routine that I’ve developed. I lock the door every time I leave, and then I start the car and get ready to drive away, then I wonder to myself, “Did I lock the door?” Then I stop the car and check the doors again. Yes, maybe I am crazy.

The second habit, which I’m finding very amusing, is my habit of talking to the television or movie screens. Growing up, whenever my family had the opportunity of being in the same room together without starting an argument or mapping out life plans for each other, our family would occasionally watch movies. This is where I get my fond interest in swashbuckling and kung fu films. But on occasion when my mother chose mystery and suspense films, my father would start asking the television questions during pivotal scenes: “Wait a minute. What’s going on here?” or “No! Why are you going to do that?” He’s always demanding to know the characters’ motives or jeering at the bad guys. It was all very annoying. I would always look back at him and snort, “We’re watching the same movie, aren’t we Dad? We don’t know more about the film than you do.” And then in my angst-riddled adolescence, I would roll my eyes and sigh.

But now it’s becoming a strange habit of mine as well. I was watching “The Hills” this week (yes, the continuation of LC’s OC adventures). When Heidi called LC to sneak her into the Teen Vogue party, I was pleading with L.C., “Don’t do it, L. She’s not you’re friend. No friend would ask you to jeopardize your internship like that.” And I sat there legs curled up, chewing my nails, completely mesmerized by the spiraling downward fall of debutantes, I demanded from her, “No! Why are you going to do that?” Toombsday looked at me again, secretly contemplating his escape.

Like my sisters, I could loathe these strange traits. I could learn to let go of the nagging frustration of my obsessive compulsive locking of doors and refrain myself from demanding plot constructs from Lake Placid. But it’s the two things that I have gained from being my father’s daughter. And I’m much more grateful for these quirks, than say, my dad’s snoring during ballets or my mom’s ass-swishing walk.