I am Wearing Olive Oyl Socks

My dad is a former military man. He's a large man who fills up the room. He wears his thinning hair in an Army length crew cut. He has two tattoos on each arm, one that says Mom, one that says my mom's name, and one that says Dad. He drives a pickup truck, listens to Rush Limbaugh, and sometimes stares at me as if he can't believe I am the product of his beautiful wife's egg and his sperm. He smoked way too much for way too many years and quit, cold turkey, almost three years ago. He has a loud, booming voice, isn't afraid to use it, and always has to be right. He drives for two hours every day commuting to his job, listening to talk radio the entire time, so he always knows the current events of the day and exactly where Rush and G. Gordon Liddy, and the rest of the bad guys stand on the issues. He was raised in Chicago and moved out in the middle of nowhere to please my mom. He tolerates the dogs (and the cats when we had them) to please my mom. He loves his wife, he loves his kids, and I am terrified I am turning into him.

I am the left wing version of my father. Or, rather, I fear I am turning into this slightly off-centered carbon copy of my father.

The biggest example of this is what I now call the "Landlord Situation."

When I left my old apartment, there were some issues with the landlords. The let the new tenants move in before our lease was up. So I handed in my keys on the 27th and stopped utilties in my name on the 28th. I thought that was fair. Then I get a letter from the landlords telling me that they were withholding money from my security deposit to handle the five days of utilities that I did not pay. They weren't going to give me interest on my deposit either (which is required of them by state law).

So I wrote a nasty letter. They wrote a nasy letter. And I found myself threatening TO SUE THEM. For fifty dollars. And when this happened, I had to stop myself. This is exactly how my father would handle the situation. And to verify that, I called my father. And he said, "that's my girl. That's exactly what you should have said to these nasty fuckers."

I find myself pacing at night, just like my father. He's an insomniac. As long as I can remember, he has never slep more than five hours a night. He paces. And last night, it was after one in the morning, I couldn't sleep, my trashy romance novel wasn't entertaining me, and I got up and paced in my room. Back and forth. Back and forth. I was trying to get my 10,000 steps in, but I wasn't counting. I was just thinking about nothing.

Then came the clincher. The radio in my truck. There are FOUR stations programmed. Yes, I know there are twelve spots. Two of them are country stations (one of these stations randomly turns into a Spanish-speaking station after nine at night, so sometimes when you get into my truck and turn it on, you get blasted with that dramatic sounding Latin music). The other two? You guessed it. NPR AND TALK RADIO. Talk radio that includes Dr. Laura in the afternoons.

I've become my father.