Yesterday, my dad called out of the blue to ask if I had a spare HDMI cable. I had several laying around, so I told him to come by to pic one up. For any normal person, this is a process that would take ~15 seconds. But not my father.
While still on the phone with me, he goes into excruciating detail about how one of my cousins is coming to visit from overseas and he’s getting the room ready for him in preparation for the visit, and while trying to figure out the television the HDMI cable suddenly failed on him. He even asked me what color the cable was, as if that possibly made any difference.
I’ve already been well aware of my cousin’s visit, he comes every year around this time for a month or so, it’s been an annual tradition of his for some time now. And my dad saying an HDMI cable failed could mean any number of things.
About 15 minutes after he finally hung up, I see him pull up front, so I went outside to meet him and hand him the cable. My dad promptly hands me the “defective” cable and demands on the spot to come inside with me and test the cable while he watches. I tell him I’m busy working on several things and would get to it when I had some free time, as I was in the midst of working on several very sensitive things he was aware of, including on a court case I had previously mentioned to him (I had informed him of this in a previous conversation a week ago, where I told him I couldn’t have anyone inside my place, even the cleaning crew that normally comes every two weeks whilst the items I’m examining for the court were present in my home office, per the presiding judge’s order).
My dad immediately got upset with me, accused me of being hostile with him, and again demanded I test the cable right away and demanded that he watch. I tried, in vain, to repeat myself that I would get to it when I actually had the time to do so. While I tried, he grabbed the “defective” cable out of my hand, walked back to his car in a huff, and asked what he ever did to deserve this sort of hostile treatment from me, and that he’d be very reluctant to ever give me help in the future. Trust me, I was more than a little tempted to respond, especially after his temper tantrum in July (long story) and all the other things he’s done over the years.
I just threw my hands up in frustration and went back inside. What bugged me the most was that he never even bothered to thank me for the good cable I gave him.