To the tune of a few billion dollars, but who’s counting?
Long story short, my parents are awesome. They’re the best. I love them to death, and I appreciate all they’ve done for me, including paying for a prestigious college and ensuring I got my Bachelor’s Degree in Business instead of just handing me a position at the company that I wasn’t ready for. I’ve worked alongside my parents for ten years now. We design garden supplies and sell seeds. No, not the gold ones. Just regular ones. It is kind of a fun business to be in as we’re always trying to source and find new seeds, even down to having our own farm laboratories to develop new varieties of flowers and vegetables.
My great, great, great grandparents started the company. It’s a family thing, and they want it to continue being a family thing. That’s also why they’re freaking out. My dad has two brothers, and both of them chose to dabble in the business for a while before going their own ways. His older brother is a lawyer while his younger brother cashed in early on his shares in the company and moved to the Caribbean. My mom, who married into the business, has a brother and a sister, and neither of them was interested in working with seeds even though the offer was made. Out of my six cousins, only one of them works at the company, and it looks like it’s going to be short-lived.
“Your cousin, Kyle, met his wife only a few years ago, and now they’re having a baby!” Mom continues on.
I start to fidget in my seat because, at this point, my ass was getting numb, but I also didn’t want to think about Kyle and Christine.
“They met in Vegas, Mom. They got married the same weekend at one of those all-night chapel things.”
“Well, they’re making it work! If they can do it, then anyone can do it.”
“That’s the definition of insanity right there.”
“Enough!” Mom wails, her eyes tearing up, and I knew I was in for it.
There wasn’t any getting out of this storm. Mom’s tears are no joke. So I wisely fall silent. Dad sits beside her, as stoic as a cement pillar, but he’s giving me that look. That disappointed look he gives me when I screw up a seed order or piss off a customer, which I haven’t done in a very long time since I climbed up the ladder to now become the CEO of the company. But I remember the disappointed dad look quite well. He’s given it to me a few times while I was growing up too.
“I’ve had enough, Cliff. This is getting serious. I want grandbabies, but that’s not the real issue. I can see how lonely you are and how you’re heading down a bad path.” So far, this is going the clichéd route of every conversation that no kid ever wants to have with their parents at any age. My mom is dead serious, though, so I sit there silently instead of commenting. “I’m done trying to keep track of your casual encounters. That is not how I raised you to be. I’m also done with hearing about you and your friends going to Vegas and—”
“Mom. That was for a stag.”
“Stag or not, it’s inappropriate.”
“That was last year.”
“But you still go out with your group of buddies every other weekend. It’s not a good image. You’re supposed to outgrow that once you’re done with your twenties. I waited patiently. Very. Patiently. But it’s time you grew up.”
“I have never missed a day of work in ten years.”
“Work isn’t all there is to life! I thought we raised you better than this. We raised you to respect other people. What you’re doing now, it’s not respectful to anyone. It’s not respectful to yourself.”
If I said that everything I’ve ever done has definitely been consensual, would it dig me deeper into the shit pile I’m drowning in at the moment? Right, I know it would, so I bite down on the urge to insert snarky, immature comments. For the record, my mom is blowing this way out of proportion. I do have a good group of friends, and we do hang out. Some of them are married—a small number. Their wives or girlfriends often come out too. It’s not like I hang out with a bunch of guys who are on the bachelors-for-life bandwagon, and we go out and atrociously live it up every other weekend. That’s not what happens.
We do normal things. Watch sports. Drink a few beers. Have BBQs. Hot tub. Go out for dinner and drinks. Go to live games. Normal guy things. It slightly picks my ass that my mom is using this as if I tear it up every weekend, getting so hammered I can’t remember my own name. And as for the dating thing, or rather, the one-night stand thing, I do casual encounters here and there. Sometimes two lonely people like to connect and go their separate ways. No strings. No expectations. It is not any more or less than that, and it does not happen chronically. I enjoy being single, and I’m in no hurry to mingle.
My mom is just taking the proverbial molehill and turning it into a mountain of reasons as to why they should threaten to disinherit me for the millionth time.
“Mom—”
“I’m not finished!” Mom crosses
