Fathers and Sons

It was also while he was in that chair that I brought home another bad report card and he takes the report card, slowly lays it over his heart, leans his head back with his eyes closed, mumbling some gibberish. Then he literally started grasping his heart – I start to almost panic, thinking he’s having a heart attack. But no no. It’s not enough for him to have a heart attack because of my crappy grades - he has the nerve to, in the midst of my thinking his heart was seizing, play the ultimate guilt card and say “Son....look...at what your grades...are doing...to....your poor mother...” fuuuuuuuuuuck! In a word, kudos. - XMASTIME

Looking back on it now, my father probably spent some time during my youth shaking his head with wonder at me as I'd bring crappy report card after crappy report card home, be it because of "spring fever" or just my general lazy-fair approach to studying.  I even drove him to lighting my report card on fire in front of my first girlfriend.  One report card was so shitty my father insisted I drop out of the 11th grade and join the Army; it took Brothatime!! reminding him that since this wasn't the 1940's, you did need to be a high school graduate to join the Amy to get him to drop the idea.  Especially following in the footsteps of Brothatime!!'s stunning academic success ("Next up, my brother's report card. After washing his hands my dad was allowed to look at it, and after the slow-clap-leading-to-a-full-standing-ovation had died down I felt his eyes on me, waiting for me to present mine."), I'm sure my father was constantly frustrated about what was to become of me.  My personal favorite moment was when he asked what I wanted to do with my life, and I earnestly told him I wanted to play in the NBA.  And that was WHEN I WAS IN THE NINTH GRADE!!!  The horrified look of disappointment on his face was an all-timer.

But I can say, unlike Bin Laden with his sons, he never suggested I become a suicide bomber:

Omar wrote that he had lost faith in his father as a young adult in war-ravaged Afghanistan when Osama suggested that he had his brothers consider taking up suicide bombing in the Taliban's cause. The boys demurred; Omar never got over the request. "My father," he wrote "hated his enemies more than he loved his sons."

I guess I wasn't THAT much of a fuck-up.