Things My Parents Taught Me

I’m not sure if I was even born yet when the incident I’m about to relate to you occurred; however, I’ve heard about it for years and my parents claim it is true. A comment Becca left on my last post made me realize it might make for an interesting blog story and I’ve received permission from my parents to post it.

My parents were in their early 20s and hadn’t been married long. Mom had given up the security of her family and home near Baltimore to move to El Paso, TX where my dad was stationed at Ft. Bliss. Dad had gone out with his Army buddies for an evening of cultural enrichment in the lovely border town of Juarez.

Many hours later, his buddies poured him out of the car onto the front lawn of our quarters. As he crawled to the front door, no doubt clutching the sparse grass firmly to keep from falling off the earth, I’m sure he was considering himself quite the party animal.

The next morning was a completely different story. He woke up with a marching band practicing maneuvers in his head and a sneaking suspicion that a cat had shat in his mouth.

I need to explain something here. My mother is a kind, caring, lovely woman. She’s volunteered for the Red Cross, Meals on Wheels, Hospice, and a number of care and compassion groups in her church. She is a good woman.

When Dad woke up groaning late the next morning, his darling bride had just walked into the room to check on him. She leaned over him, lovingly laid her hands on his shoulders, and quietly whispered, “Oh, honey. Do you have a hangover?”

“Yes,” he whimpered.

“GOOD!” she yelled, as she shook the daylights out of him.

I don’t know if my dad ever had another hangover. I do know that he’s never complained about one.

Mom and Dad will be celebrating forty-five years of wedded bliss this August. They’ve had good times and bad times and, for the most part, been fair with each other.

What this story illustrates is one of the valuable lessons about personal responsibility that my parents taught me: If you knowingly do something that causes you pain, you lose your right to complain about it.

I won’t run down the list of my flaws and virtues but I have a fair amount of each. I’ve claimed for a number of years that I am both the very best and the very worst of my parents.

I’m good with that.