I did dishes after dinner the other evening. I found myself carefully washing out a large styrofoam tub and its lid we had brought home from the Chinese restaurant the day before. I'm thinking, "why waste a perfectly good container with a well fitting lid when all it would do otherwise is occupy space in a landfill for the next 3 to 4 thousand years? This will be good for something." And then it struck me: This is exactly the type of thing my mother would do that drove me crazy as a kid.
If you had opened our refrigerator in 1968 you would have found all manner of containers enjoying a second, third, or fourth incarnation. Cottage cheese? Not on your life. That would be left-over mashed potatoes. See? Look at the masking tape label. And that jar? Lemonade? No. That would be potato water. And that coffee can? Bacon grease.
Here I am 40+ years later doing pretty much the same thing. I have a cupboard full of empty cottage cheese and sour cream containers awaiting the call to return to service. My wife is tolerant but I'm dumbstruck: How does one end up doing the very things they most despised in a parent's behavior? With respect to mom there are a few traits I'd like to divorce.
But today is Father's Day. For learning kindness, caring about the welfare of others and for knowing concern, I thank my dad. For a sense of style and believing in the importance of appearance when meeting with those who come to me for help, I thank my Dad. For the love of trains, planes and automobiles, it's Dad. But to be clear, and for the record, I do not ever foresee a time when I'll be strolling about in a red velour jumpsuit. Smoking a pipe? Well, maybe. But not any time soon. And never while using the bathroom.
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