I've Made A Decision

Found a new series I've been watching on Showtime called "We Hunt Together".

Deliciously dark and well done. You can check it out or watch "The Sound of Music" again; it's up to you.

I watched episode 5 yesterday. In it, one of the main characters, Baba, tells a story about his childhood in a village in a third world country. Rebels raided the village. They gave his brother a gun and told him he had a choice - to kill either their father or their mother.

He refused, so the rebels killed him. And gave the gun to Baba. He is still alive as an adult so obviously he killed one of his parents.

Very dark.

Got me thinking - which parent would I kill?

I would kill my mother.

Tough as my father was, my mother was the one who smacked us around. My father never hit me.

One of my favorite memories is as a teenager when my mother slapped my face and I just stood there looking at her. She said "You look like you hate me. I can see it in your eyes". I did.

Not always, I just hated her for doing that. 

I hated her when we had to clean the house, especially fall and spring cleaning. Oh my god she was a bitch at those times. Twice a year. Me and my brother and my father did our chores with our tails between our legs as Revia Hitler maniacally bossed us around and threw tantrums when our efforts were not good enough for her. Raving fucking tantrums.

Please understand. I loved my mother. She was my mother, after all. And she took pretty good care of us. And she had a hard life - six heart attacks, the sixth being the fatal one. 

But human relationships, especially family relationships, are shaky; there are plenty of dark spots hidden within the light.

My father was a lot softer than he let on; my mother was a lot darker than she let on.

I felt bad for my mother because I think a lot of her unhappiness was caused by my father. I have no real insight into their relationship other than a sense that something was off. It's not like my dad smacked her around or screamed at her. He was just old school and treated women in a condescending way.

Although I remember one incident when they got to yelling at each other and my mother walked out of the house. We had no idea where she was going. She walked down to the local McDonald's and sat down. 

She was trapped. She had no driver's license, no way to get out of this situation, this marriage. She did not know what to do or where to go or who to turn to. I felt so bad for her.

She painted the picture of the happy housewife loving to cook and entertain and keep an immaculate house, but maybe she wanted more than that.

My dad was going through her stuff after she died and found an envelope or bag with $700 in it. She had been stashing money aside. For what? Escape? My father was a bit unnerved by that.

Anyway, the point I am making is if you need them, you can find reasons to kill a parent. Many is the time I have suddenly turned around to find Keith or Craig standing behind me with meat cleaver raised as they self-consciously say "Hey Dad, look at this new kitchen utensil I bought. Isn't it cool? A real time saver".

And I say "Jesus Christ, how many meat cleavers does one kitchen need?"

I was not the favorite of my mom or my dad. Always felt to me like I was a bit of a disappointment in their eyes. But my mother was more vocal about it. She said some hurtful things to me over the years, comments that were not designed to bolster my self image.

Although there were times when she was supportive, or at least tried to give me some guidance. Her favorite comment was "You are your own worst enemy", which was true. Still true today.

My father's comments were a bit more esoteric. Like "Are you ever gonna use your head for anything besides a hat rack?"

So that's it. That's the logic for choosing which parent to kill (with a heavy dose of superfluous information thrown in for good measure).

I thought this blog entry would be kind of fun to write.

It wasn't.