What was so nice about the last two weeks was that I had nearly zero contact with my parents. It was so refreshing to not have to dread some senseless argument, listen to my parents accuse me of doing something else to hurt them or reject them, or really, any of their usual drama where they victimize themselves and make others out to be predators. The closest annoyance I had with them was when I had food sent to their house shortly after I came back, and my dad sent a pseudo-thank-you email. I call it “pseudo” because he basically said, ” Thanks for the food… But it arrived at 6:20, and we had already eaten at 5….” In fact, they usually eat at 4:30. Well, guess what? Delivery services for dinner usually start at 6pm — that’s considered a normal eating time. It’s not my fault that these restaurants don’t cater to his senior-citizen eating hours. And even so, they can eat the food the next day and the day after that. The food isn’t going to spoil. Why can’t they just express gratitude and leave it at that? Is it really so hard?

So the drama has to begin again once I get back into this country within a week. My aunt texts me to tell me that my parents hurriedly left the house in their car this late afternoon, and when my aunt asked my mom if everything was okay, all she said was, “It’s an emergency,” and ran off. That’s always a good way to make sure everyone is calm and collected. So immediately, my aunt is confused and tries to call me to let me know. I wasn’t immediately alarmed given the nature of my parents and their secrecy, so I called their house and their cell, and no response. Multiple calls later, still no response. My aunt then calls to inform me that they’ve arrived home, but my mom is resting according to my dad. So I figure, okay, now they are definitely home. So I called the house. Three times. No response. They can clearly see it’s me on the caller ID. Why is he not answering the phone?

I call my aunt again and tell her that they still aren’t answering the phone, so she suggests that I e-mail my anti-social dad. So I email him and asked why he wasn’t answering the phone, and that my aunt said it was an emergency. What was going on? Is everything okay?

Within a few hours, this is his exact response: “It is not an emergency. Quit calling so many times.”

So, I have a few thoughts on this response. 1) He failed to disclose what the issue was, 2) he’s completely deaf to the fact that my mom called this an emergency, and anytime anyone calls anything an emergency, with normal people who actually care, well, they might actually be concerned, and 3) maybe if he actually was going to be a mature human about this, he could have… I don’t know… just answered the phone and told me what happened so that I wouldn’t have had to call so many times?