From '20 lines a day' assignment
Your father, who is a worrier, does not understand or wholly trust technology. An accountant, he types his letters on Microsoft Excel, in one giant cell. He is not appalled that John McCain cannot use a computer. During the Y2K scare, he stocked the garage with giant barrels full of water; it seemed wholly reasonable that something as unstable and unknowable as a computer might indeed cause the world to collapse.
He writes short emails in response to your long ones. My trip back was pretty good, you write, Even though my plane was delayed four hours and I got in after all the school shuttles stopped running and I had to pay a ridiculous amount for a taxi. And the flight was really bumpy and turbulent and scary, which was terrible, but you’ll never guess––on my same flight was a girl I went to high school with! And her little sister knows Brett from school! He writes back: Name?
Tonight you have your weekly family softball game/dinner and you’ve volunteered to bake bread. You remember your grandmother has some rosemary plants and you send an email to your mother’s family listserv, asking if anyone knows whether that plant is the edible kind of rosemary or the toxic kind. Ten minutes later, your father, who is at work and generally doesn’t reply to personal emails at the office, who has never once replied to an email thread to your mother’s family (and who you didn’t even think was on that list, in fact), has responded, to the whole family: If you don’t know, I think you need to assume IT IS THE TOXIC KIND. Daddad. And you can very precisely picture his panic, imagine him frantically typing, adding the caps lock for extra emphasis. Six years ago when you told him you wanted a tattoo he presented you with a half-inch stack of printed papers: a list of diseases one can contract through needles.
You know that, later, you and Brett will text it to each other back and forth, something that reminds you of all you find funny about your father, something you’ll repeat when you’re driving together and the conversation lulls, or your father comes up: I think you need to assume IT IS THE TOXIC KIND. A joke that, likely, will outlive your father himself.
He writes short emails in response to your long ones. My trip back was pretty good, you write, Even though my plane was delayed four hours and I got in after all the school shuttles stopped running and I had to pay a ridiculous amount for a taxi. And the flight was really bumpy and turbulent and scary, which was terrible, but you’ll never guess––on my same flight was a girl I went to high school with! And her little sister knows Brett from school! He writes back: Name?
Tonight you have your weekly family softball game/dinner and you’ve volunteered to bake bread. You remember your grandmother has some rosemary plants and you send an email to your mother’s family listserv, asking if anyone knows whether that plant is the edible kind of rosemary or the toxic kind. Ten minutes later, your father, who is at work and generally doesn’t reply to personal emails at the office, who has never once replied to an email thread to your mother’s family (and who you didn’t even think was on that list, in fact), has responded, to the whole family: If you don’t know, I think you need to assume IT IS THE TOXIC KIND. Daddad. And you can very precisely picture his panic, imagine him frantically typing, adding the caps lock for extra emphasis. Six years ago when you told him you wanted a tattoo he presented you with a half-inch stack of printed papers: a list of diseases one can contract through needles.
You know that, later, you and Brett will text it to each other back and forth, something that reminds you of all you find funny about your father, something you’ll repeat when you’re driving together and the conversation lulls, or your father comes up: I think you need to assume IT IS THE TOXIC KIND. A joke that, likely, will outlive your father himself.
posted by Kelly at
12:02 PM
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