Don't Bust Your Ass

One of the worst things that happened in the marriage of my parents was that after my father retired he began to care about the décor of their home. Suddenly after years of not caring or noticing, it became important to my dad to have some say in the purchase of furniture. This confused my mother greatly, for most of their life together she had gleefully made these kinds of purchases without his opinion or consent.

The closest she would come would be to say to him, “I’m buying a new loveseat.” To which my father would grunt acknowledgement of having heard her make a noise in his general direction, and then resume reading the sports page or watching golf on TV. The loveseat would magically appear some days or weeks later and if my mother didn’t say things to him like “Hey look! A new loveseat!”, my dad would have planted his butt upon it and never noticed anything new or different.

After he retired my mother’s blissful lifestyle of buying whatever she pleased came to a grinding halt.

My dad retired in the late spring and spent his days playing as much golf as possible. He was happier than he’d been in years. He joined a country club so that it would be easier to find other men to play with, as not all of his regular golfing buddies were retired yet. He even took a summer job as a Ranger at a local public golf course. His life was golf, golf and more golf.

Then winter came.

No longer able to play golf every day he became bored shitless. So much so that he took a part time job stocking potato chips in grocery stores. When this was no longer a fulfilling way to pass the time he began to accompany my mother on her shopping trips.

At first my mother was delighted to have my dad along. After years of being a golf widow, and abjectly ignored by my dad she was pleased with his desire for her company. Her delight quickly turned to irritation, as he either would wait for her in the car, thus causing her to worry about him waiting in the car, and began to rush through her shopping, OR if he actually came into the store with her, he had an obnoxious opinion about everything she wanted to buy, so she ended up buying nothing.

The real problems started when my mom wanted to buy a suite of furniture for the formal dining room in the new house they had built a couple of years after his retirement. They had never had a formal dining room before.

My mom began to scour through local furniture stores for ideas with my father tagging along. My mother, never very innovative (she was a CPA), tended to buy entire room displays, including the artwork and tchatchkis, from furniture stores so that the look was certain to be recreated in exactly the same way in her home. After weeks of looking, she finally found a suite of furniture she loved. To her dismay my dad hated it.

He did something he never did and put his foot down, forbidding my mother to buy it.

She was stunned.

The dining room sat empty for months.

Then spring came and my father was otherwise occupied with golf and no longer interested in shopping for furniture with her, He was back to golf, golf and more golf. Spring and summer came and went and still the dining room remained empty. The sight of it left a sour taste in my mother’s mouth every time she passed by.

Eventually they found a set of furniture they could both agree upon, but my mom had never gotten used to the idea of having to consider dad’s decorating desires. Something that used to be a joy for her has become a chore.

They now live in Florida (The Villages!), where my dad is able to golf nearly year round and often twice a day. He still insists on accompanying her when she shops for furniture. It’s the third house they have purchased since retiring and my mom has simply given up trying to decorate.

It’s noticeable the minute you walk in the door. My mother’s taste has always run toward a mix of contemporary and traditional and yet the first thing you see when you walk into their house is an ornately carved marble and wrought iron monstrosity of a wine cabinet. It’s the size of a Buick, with a cheesy carved sign over the attached mirror that says, “Cabernet”. “Who knew he loved a fake Tuscan theme?”, she said bitterly.

She despises this thing.

They bought their current house about a year ago and she hasn’t purchased one new thing for it. Not one. When I was there last May I asked her about it and she heaved a sigh and said, “What’s the point?”

It had gotten so bad that she even refused to buy a new office chair to replace the one that had been broken for over a year. They went shopping together to buy one, but couldn’t agree on a style. Apparently the argument turned quite ugly. They are still both sore about the entire experience and still without an office chair. My mother brought in one of the dining room chairs to sit in when she uses the computer in their little office, but my father refuses to admit defeat by using the dining chair and continues to use the broken one. I’m worried that his obstinate ass will suffer a broken tailbone when the leg of the chair finally gives out.

Now I have done something I never thought I would have to do. I told my parents to stop acting like children and ordered them to get a new goddamn office chair before someone gets hurt.