Time and time again, I've made it perfectly clear that his cigarette smoke brings about headaches and nausea, that it smells of burned popcorn and ass. His response is a complete disregard for me.
Not only me, but my mom also. Recently, she had to start using an inhaler daily due to having some form of asthma. It took such an issue for my dad to go so far as to only smoke upstairs, because my mom sleeps (and more or less lives) downstairs, and outside. Glad to see that, so I was. Now all his smoke is confined to a room a couple feet from my own. Confined isn't the correct term, either, because I can close the door, shove something under it (towel, throw, anything'll do), point the fan at the door full blast to blow away any smoke that seeps through, spray air freshener, and hold my shirt up over my nose and mouth and still smell that pungent farking aroma. What's worse is that that acrid smoke clings to my clothes, so even putting my shirt up over my nose and mouth doesn't separate me from that smell.
This smell not only comes from his cigarettes, but from him. Often, when he returns home, I can smell that odor that follows him around like dirt followed Pigpen of Peanuts fame around, before he even lights up for the first time. He's one big putrescent ball of stank, is what he is. Cannot go to the bathroom without leaving it reeking. Never restrains his flatulence, instead unleashing it on us basically purposefully and chuckling heartily about it like a child.
But it's not only the smell. The computer room is a collection of beer cans on the floor and everywhere else in sight as well as a disgusting mess all over everything in sight from his cigarettes. Ashes litter the floor, keyboard, mouse, computer desk. His smoke undoubtedly clogged his computer's fans enough to kill it, as I see no other reason for it to die so soon. A yellow film from that same smoke covers multiple rooms, but the bathroom and computer room more than any others.
This smell not only comes from his cigarettes, but from him. Often, when he returns home, I can smell that odor that follows him around like dirt followed Pigpen of Peanuts fame around, before he even lights up for the first time. He's one big putrescent ball of stank, is what he is. Cannot go to the bathroom without leaving it reeking. Never restrains his flatulence, instead unleashing it on us basically purposefully and chuckling heartily about it like a child.
But it's not only the smell. The computer room is a collection of beer cans on the floor and everywhere else in sight as well as a disgusting mess all over everything in sight from his cigarettes. Ashes litter the floor, keyboard, mouse, computer desk. His smoke undoubtedly clogged his computer's fans enough to kill it, as I see no other reason for it to die so soon. A yellow film from that same smoke covers multiple rooms, but the bathroom and computer room more than any others.
Oh, and, to make these cigarettes of his, he has a machine with some sort of crank with some sort of spring inside that sounds ready to break. What I hear every 10 seconds or so is a crank followed by the tapping of his cigarette off the machine. This'll go on for hours at a time. Every other day, because of the chain-smoker he is, filling up one of those large cigarette boxes each time, and going through the whole thing in a couple days.
Also, while he might have showed a modicum of care for my mother by keeping his smoke out of the downstairs, that was all the care I've seen him show in years upon years upon years. What does he do when he comes home but make for the upstairs and the computer room where he sits the rest of the night playing games with sounds that'd irk anyone off ("Jackpot spin," or a low rumbling that sounds like distant thunder every 10 seconds or so, for example), only coming down long enough to eat supper. Lately, he's been gone more often, devoting most of his time off to helping my sister fix up the home she'll be moving into before school starts up for her son if all goes according to plan. Going there and only ever giving us a vague idea of when he'll be back if my mom demands he be home by a certain time, leaving us without a clue about what we'll do about supper, among other things, due to it being uncertain when he'll be back around. For me, him being away so often is a blessing, but it still enrages me how little regard he shows my mother. Nowadays, seeing him rub her back or kiss her is so foreign and rare to me that I'm taken aback by it. While I've dealt with his crap all my life, my mom's dealt with it longer, and that pains me, because I love her, no matter how much we might disagree.
What's worse is that he deflects all negativity directed toward him. If it's coming from me, he harps on that, "Who's driving you to Pitt and cosigning for your loans and'll have to pay them off if you don't," refrain, which only serves as a constant reminder of the fact that, outside of supporting our household, and doing his part to get me through college, he has rarely acted like a father to me. Nearest I've come to a father-son moment was when he would take me to the driving range and buy me a Butterfinger afterwards. Sure, he drove me to midget league football and Tae Kwon Do practice, and took me to get Burger King after those nighttime Tae Kwon Do practices, but that's been about the extent of him being fatherly. And if the negativity is coming from my mother, he, more often than not, tries to make a joke out of it. Laugh it off and away.
Which brings me to another point. In terms of his personality, my dad is stubborn, condescending, egotistical, slightly racist, ignorant, lazy and quick to anger. Often, he'll make a pointed remark about one of us, and play it off as a joke, acting as if he's ignorant to the fact that saying such things could be hurtful. He's too set in his ways to let any outside input change the way he acts, too. No matter how many times you tell him you cannot turn right on red at that turn, he'll do it anyway, saying there's nothing wrong with it as long as no cops're watching. He makes a living out of chewing people out for bad service when the opportunity presents itself, yet when it comes to computer related matters, in which he is particularly ignorant, he stands the worst and least reliable internet service, or service altogether, that I have ever encountered for years too long before doing something about it, used AOL for far too long, and, back when we used the same computer, often blamed me for any issues with the computer because I, "was the last one on it." Any story concerning a black man has race emphasized. While a normal person might say, "There was this guy that . . .," he says, "There was this black guy that . . .," when if it were a white man he wouldn't say, "There was this white guy that . . ." Anyone that drives something other than a GMC or Jeep vehicle is an imbecile, in his view, and if you ask him, he's surrounded by imbeciles, while he's the model of intelligence. All in all, he acts like a child. We're lucky if he puts his own clothes in the washer; if he does, he expects us to bother putting them in the dryer, then folding or hanging them up. I'm always the one tasked with cleaning up the filth he leaves in the computer room when it comes that time again. I've taken to putting my own air conditioner in the past couple years because I'd be waiting the entire summer for him to put it in if I didn't. He's even lazy in terms of food. Mom'll buy him something he asked specifically for, such as an ice cream novelty, and it'll sit until it nearly becomes freezer burnt. My mom and I, not wanting them to go to waste, eat them, and, as a result, start the complaining from him about eating his stuff. Mom bought him French Toast to eat for breakfast about a week ago, and he had yet to open the box when I went to have some because I was out of cereal this morning.
And these feelings are not new. As a child, he was my inspiration for promising to myself that I would abstain from drugs and alcohol entirely. No matter the fact that he drinks alcohol as if he cannot function if he's not imbibing it, and shows no ill effects unless he really goes overboard, I remember being deathly afraid that he'd run us off the road, or something of that nature, or that he'd be pulled over for a DUI, or at one of those random checkpoints. But the random checkpoints you hear so much about seem to be a scare tactic, because neither he, nor anyone in my family, has come upon one at any point in time. Again, when I was a kid, I had a dream where he was pulling up the driveway and my sister, mom and I hid around the side of the house and behind the bushes as he pulled up. Then, when the door opened, there was a robot driving and he lied slumped over, dead, on the passenger side. Recently I had another dream, and in this one I took his head off with a large blade. Sadly, such dreams make more sense in the grand scheme of things than I'd like them to. Maybe it's because I've been a momma's boy since I was a kid, when I'd spend my time in her room, on her bed with her, head often in her lap. But, even so, I cannot find myself ever referring to my dad in a more positive maner than, "He's my dad."
[/Rant]
