I remember one Christmas my siblings and I chipped in and bought our mother a pillbox hat since she was a fan of Jacqueline Kennedy, and our father a tie with broad green and gold stripes. They looked like the standard “Elly bug-eye fourth panel look” when they saw them. However, that night after we went to bed and I had to get up to go to the bathroom, I happened to overhear my parents.
Dad: “I know the kids meant well, but I would not wear that tie to a dog fight. And that hat looks like something that the girls at the strip club wear.”
Mom: “I am going to wear the hat in public and you are going to wear the tie to work.”
Dad: “But what will people say when they see us wearing those?”
Mom: “I don’t give a rats ass what our friends, or anyone else thinks. The kids bought us these gifts because they love us. We are not going to hurt their feelings.”
Dad: “Well, no, but I completely understand if there is some bad weather or I get messy at work.”
I never told my siblings about that because as kids, that was good money spent on those gifts. I also feigned disappointment when my mother ruined that hat the first and only time she wore it in a rainstorm which ruined it, and my father got ink all over his tie the second time he wore it.
I remember one Christmas my siblings and I chipped in and bought our mother a pillbox hat since she was a fan of Jacqueline Kennedy, and our father a tie with broad green and gold stripes. They looked like the standard “Elly bug-eye fourth panel look” when they saw them. However, that night after we went to bed and I had to get up to go to the bathroom, I happened to overhear my parents.
Dad: “I know the kids meant well, but I would not wear that tie to a dog fight. And that hat looks like something that the girls at the strip club wear.”
Mom: “I am going to wear the hat in public and you are going to wear the tie to work.”
Dad: “But what will people say when they see us wearing those?”
Mom: “I don’t give a rats ass what our friends, or anyone else thinks. The kids bought us these gifts because they love us. We are not going to hurt their feelings.”
Dad: “Well, no, but I completely understand if there is some bad weather or I get messy at work.”
I never told my siblings about that because as kids, that was good money spent on those gifts. I also feigned disappointment when my mother ruined that hat the first and only time she wore it in a rainstorm which ruined it, and my father got ink all over his tie the second time he wore it.