Choose your own adventure!

Dude, I'm fucking tired today.

Felt dizzy all morning and depressed. I got so frustrated at myself for letting an encounter with my supervisor ruin my week (or at least what I feel like), that I got totally depressed. Or at least I thought I was. Now, I have a fever and feel like I'm coming down with something. At least I'm off the hook for feeling bad. I'll explain that comment.

It's always been unacceptable for me to be not doing well because of “mental issues”. Now, this doesn't mean I'm schizo or bipolar or have any serious, severe mental health issues. This means that when I was younger, my dad would throw a fit every time I wanted to stay home from school because he thought I was faking it because I didn't want to go. This would happen all the time. I remember I would have a 100 degree temp having played hardcore tennis all weekend and dad would be screaming at the door in the morning “time to get UP UP UP UP UP” and singing the Rascals “It's a beautiful morning”. God dammit, it wasn't beautiful, it was pouring down rain in the Pacific Northwest. Just because you've been up for 6 hours already running, it's not fucking beautiful. To a high school sophomore, it's even uglier. So, it was a choice. Yes this is a choose your own adventure.

A. decide to stay in bed. Turn to number 1.

B. decide to get your ass up and go with dad. Turn to number 2.

1.You have a serious fever and feel like shit. You have asthma and sore muscles and a bad cough. What do you need permission to approach the bench if you are sick? Fuck that. Dad comes in the room screaming at the top of his lungs about nothing in particular- about how his sister never missed school because she just went regardless of how bad she was feeling. YOU HAVE TO GO TO SCHOOL. WHAT YOU DON'T WANT TO GO BECAUSE YOU DON'T LIKE IT? What dad didn't know is that I liked high school. It gave me a great option to get away from the screaming and fighting at home. Plus, there was pot in high school. No, dad, I just feel like shit. In comes mom as the mediator. Oh, no everything will be okay. Yes it will. Honey, she just doesn't feel so well. SHE'S GOD DAMN FINE. THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH HER! So it goes until dad has either screamed until he's pissed enough and ran out of the house, or decided to drag your ass out of bed to school where you decide to come home at 11 because you're sick. Then mom has to rush to the phone later that night when the automated services says, “your son or daughter has been absent for one or more classes today”. If dad answers and finds out she has to lie and say there was a glitch in the system, or say I had to leave for tennis practice. That always made everything okay. As long as it involved becoming a professional tennis star, everything was okay. Ha, well, at least I didn't go all Wimbledon on his ass, I don't know if you could have lived with both a gay son AND daughter. THE END.
2.You get up and go with dad as he sings songs about “Frog and Toad's Adventures” (remember those books?) or some random Italian exchange student that he liked his name. I don't know how many days I would go to school hearing, “Alaysioooo” in his best rendition of an opera singer. Yea, you wonder where I get my randomness from. So, there he sits, in his old mobster (black wanna be) car playing MC Hammer, talking on his cell phone with a client and shoveling day old flavored caramel corn into his mouth (half of it is going out the window and the other half is going somewhere in the car), talking to me about one of the more overachiever class president type students at my school (who me and all my friends hated) who works at his favorite coffee shop. *Note- dad actually got pulled over once for drunk driving because he was driving a stick shift on a cell phone, eating caramel corn, picking his nose and having a conversation, I really don't know how he had a hand to drive. At this time, I start having fantasies about if he only knew how much pot I smoked and how I still held everything together at school. I wondered if he ever puffed on the schadoobie in high school. And what all this repressed anger was all about. * It turns out that dad had apparently had some bully at his own school who used to intimidate him and dad didn't want to go to school for that reason. So, he figured that when I didn't want to go to school, it meant because I was being bullied. I think he assumed this because I was kind of a hippie and didn't like the “running crowd” in high school. At this point, not only is your fever worsening, but your head is swimming.

Dad pulls up to the school. You 1. run and call 911 for child abuse. This could happen right? 2. decide that you'll walk (if you didn't play a tennis tournament where they put you in 3 matches in one day) or limp directly into the school nurse when you get there where you know you'll be sent home.

1.Good choice- way to deal with the social work issues. Dad is questioned about the neglect or abuse of a child. And maybe shuts up for a while. Pushing a child with a fever to go to school, play tennis tournaments and finish everything on time without extentions in honors and accelerated classes is a form of abuse. Expecting your child to be the fucking next Bobby Fisher if they don't have mad chess skills is also a form of abuse. I was not Steffi Graf and they had no business treating me that way. Oh wait, dad is a lawyer and he has a respectable practice. Stupid luck kid, this way you just get yelled at and threatened for being an asshole. THE END.
2.Best choice.- you go into the nurses office and tell them you have a fever. The nurse confirms that you are sick and sends you home. Stupidly enough, she calls dad, who just got into the office. Instead of taking you home, he takes you down town where he sits you in his office to watch Sesame Street while he works. I don't know about any of you, but how many of you watched Sesame Street when you were 14? I'm not talking about watching it NOW- just when you were fourteen? It's like, “dad, I'm not five” and moreover your head is spinning and all you want is to lay in bed. Dad is insistent that you stay at his office and wait until you feel better. So, it's wait until your fever spikes up to 101 or 102 and THEN he'll let you go home. Because anything under that is a glitch in the thermometer. THE END.

Well, that's one adventure.

Let's try for another shall we? Because dad's really entertaining.

Dad takes the whole family of 20 people out to a fun birthday dinner at his favorite Chinese restaurant. You know what they say about Jews and Chinese. He orders for everyone. Only instead of ordering normally, he says to the waitress, “I'll have thwee ohdas of flied lice”. Everyone laughs except for me and the waitress who glares at him. I'm waiting for her to spit in his food. That would be amusing for everyone except for yours truly. “And twooo muthu pahks”.

You 1. tell dad to shut the hell up because he's being an asshole.
Or 2. ignore him and laugh along.

1.Good for you, you appropriate social worker. You tell dad to shut up because he's being a racist asshole. Then your aunt screams at you and tells you that you are a horrible daughter and you get ostracized. Way to go kid! THE END.
2.Ignore him and laugh along. Embarrassed, you decide that agreeing to go along with the family, you are doomed to listen to dad's bullshit throughout dinner. Actually, it's probably better that you pick your battles. If you don't tell him he's being an asshole, maybe he'll let you stay home from school next time your sick! THE END.
Dad takes you to districts in another podunk town where the locals still wear mullets and get Asbestos poisoning. You play really well and kick some ass until you have to play against your nemesis, a girl who cheats and you hate. Not only that, but dad actually threw a punch at her dad before because she cheated in your match. Good stuff. Well, needless to say, you choke and don't play well. Dad decides to throw a temper tantrum at you in the car. No, you don't realize you screwed up so bad, it couldn't be because of all the pressure you put on yourself. It's just to piss dad off. The world has ended though in his opinion. He has lost so much hope that he wishes you were one of those overachievers because you don't do enough and you can't keep your head on straight! Moreover, he calls you a cow because you weigh 130 pounds and are stocky for tennis- this is obviously the reason you can't move fast enough.
You 1. decided to argue.
2. shut up and wait to get home so mom can tell you how disappointed she is as well.

1.Argue- this is a bad idea. Dad starts screaming and swerving. You finally shut up anyway and dad keeps screaming at you all the way home and won't talk to you for 2 days.
2.Shut up- you decide either behavior doesn't make a difference and you sit and listen to the bullshit being thrown at you and believe it!

One more- on a lighter note, because dad had his moments too: don't know why I'm on this subject today, but it's kind of fun!

Dad invites you to yoga class with mom. You are 18. This is at his favorite yoga studio where you happen to run into one of your school mates. You talk with her for a few before the class starts. She happens to pair up with dad whose showing off his latest pair of spandex shorts with a florescent green stripe across the side. While your mind is screaming no, you try to ignore this. Of course, the class starts you're waiting for all hell to break loose. Sure enough, in the midst of partners grabbing one another's ankles, dad farts right in his partners face for the entire class to hear. AT this point, while I think I would laugh hysterically NOW, I was horrified then.

I don't really have a choose your own adventure for this one. I think you should make your own up.

Insight: Maybe this offers some explanation about my tendencies towards overachieving and the pressure I put on myself. Also, my guilt in relation to being tired or exhausted. Sometimes it's okay not to have energy- but it sure feels more like a guilt trip.