But He’s Still Preoccupied With 19… 19… 1975

My dad’s a really nice guy, but sometimes I don’t think he’s realized the world has changed at all since 1975.

My brother went to culinary school and was working in a hotel restaurant. He was complaining about coming home drenched in sweat because the air conditioner for the kitchen broke and it took a week to be fixed.

My father had two suggestions. One was to tell the manager that you’re not going to work until it’s fixed. When we responded that he’d be fired, Dad said no, that the boss would admire his up-frontness and probably promote him.

His other suggestion was that my brother go out and attempt to repair the commercial air conditioning unit himself. Again, he thought that this would earn respect and dismissed our arguments about voiding warranties because amateur repair attempts aren’t wise.

At another point, he volunteered to help me come up with a budget so I could work on savings. His sample budget had $300 a month rent for my three-bedroom apartment — which actually runs around $1900. He suggested I drop Internet, despite working from home two days a week, and budgeted a whopping $100 a month for groceries for my family of three.

He also suggested that my eighteen-year-old sister “really experience America” by hitchhiking across the US instead of taking a plane. “It will be so freeing! No cell phone, no credit card — just take a wad of cash.” He seemed shocked that we thought this might be a little dangerous.