Monday, April 18, 2011

In two weeks, my father, my son, my brother and I will be attending the Penn Relays in Philly. We went last year and had a ball, and it was decided among all of us that it was something we should try to do annually. Last year I bought the tickets, and I didn't make my brother and my father pay me back, because I was just happy to kick this tradition off. I even paid for parking once we got up there. This year I bought the tickets once again, but I was hoping someone else would take the lead on paying for them. When that did not initially happen, I just went ahead and bought the tickets again, and then I sent both my brother and my father the receipt. They both said they'd pay me when they saw me.

So yesterday we were all sitting in my living room watching the fantastic NBA playoffs, when my father just hands me a check out of nowhere. It felt a little awkward taking money from my father, but I said thank you and put it aside. I tried to put the check close to my brother so he would pay me too, but he did not take the bait. 15 minutes later we said our goodbyes, and they both left my place.

20 minutes after I took a shower, and I thought about the situation a bit and I felt guilty for taking money from my father. I can't even begin to account the number of times he helped me out financially or otherwise when I was struggling. I haven't needed to ask him for money for years and that feels good, so the last thing I needed to be doing was collecting money from him (from my vantage point at least). Right after I got out of the shower, I told him that I could either shred the check or give it back to him when I saw him, but I damn sure wasn't cashing it. He tried to fight me for awhile and tell me to just keep it and buy something for my son, but I wasn't having it. He finally just told me to just give him the check the next time I saw him.

Then I called my brother and very begrudgingly told him he didn't have to pay me either. It sucks taking money from your dad, but it feels absolutely great to take insane amounts of money from your younger sibling. But I felt like this was the right thing to do, and I don't regret my decision this morning either.

The lesson here? Sometimes you just have to suck on it and like it..or if that's too sexually charged for you, sometimes you have to take one for the team. That's a lesson that Carmelo Anthony did NOT learn last night but that's a whole other story..

2 comments:

maxwellsmusze said...

you're a good son. at a certain point its almost criminal to take money from your parents. a short-term loan is okay but otherwise its just kinda wrong. you did the right thing!

Janelle said...

Good move. It will come back to you tenfold. At least that's what they say.