No doubt, Dad had said something detestable again, or considered detestable in my mother’s eyes.
This scene was nothing new in the Daring household…I mean the slamming of doors. My Dad is Phil Daring, the ‘wannabe’ writer, uncool parent and first class nerd. Great. Somebody, who should have known better, has given my father the opportunity to write about our family and our embarrassing stories each month. Printed in a local magazine, which, by all accounts, is also read online by thousands of people all over the world. Isn’t that wonderful?
Well, no, it’s not. It’s interesting to read my Dad’s opinions on what happens in our house. Quite an eye opener to an adolescent like myself. Seeing how objectionable the outlook of a husband and father of two daughters really is. Talking about how our hormones work and analysing how we react when he ‘presses our buttons’. He’s very good at winding us both up, making mum and I snap. Knows all the right things to say to piss us off and get an argument going and then, uses it in a story. He says we roll our eyes a lot and frequently sigh heavily. That’s when he knows something is wrong. Says he can ‘read us’. Well, listen up Dad, I’m your daughter, not a book.
To be honest, some of the stories do make me laugh. The way he sees our family. I have no idea why my parents are together. They are so different. Years of research by scientists would fail to identify the reason. I guess one thing that we can agree on is that he is delusional, we are dysfunctional and I am delightful. I am also sixteen years old and need my distance from the world, something my parents refuse to give me. I’ve got my always-angry mother watching me like a hawk and my geeky Dad trying to get me to listen to Bach or Bacon or whatever their names are or read a Shakespeare play. They just don’t understand.
Dad says we’re no different to any other family. Everyone has the same issues. Bollocks (and yes, Dad, it is not a swear word, I checked). How many other teenagers have to put up with their lives being published in the ‘humour’ category? Being read about and laughed at? My parents are bad enough when you meet them, what with their horrible jokes and scary laughs. My mum cackles like a witch and it makes me cringe. She’s so embarrassing. And now my friends at school can read all about our ‘funny’ private stories. It’s not fair and makes everything a hundred times worse.
Especially when he writes about them doing ‘it’. It’s bad enough hearing them at ‘it’ through the bedroom walls, let alone having to read about ‘it’ as well. That’s too much. It’s over the top. Besides, a middle aged man should not be thinking about sex, let along doing ‘it’ or talking about it. If that man is your dad and he’s telling the world as well then, that is just not on. It’s disgusting. Old people carnally engaged. Ewww. Citylife should censor the page or mark it with an ‘R’. Put a warning there saying ‘only read this if you want to be sick’. I am scarred for life and will be sending him the bill for my future psychiatrist sessions.
I suppose that if they hadn’t then D1 and I wouldn’t be here. She’s ok. She lives in Australia. Far enough away from them. But I’ve still got eighteen months to go before I can leave. That’s like, forever. Then my eighteen years of embarrassment will be over. Dad says it’s not all about me but I know it is and I can wind him round my little finger. If I’ve got to live with this humiliation, I might as well make him pay.
I think it’s time for a new computer.
