The 30 day Writing Challenge - your parents

Well, they have always argued a lot, but never a fight. Or so I was told when I was very young. Naturally, I got a welp of a slap from my Dad and almost had to walk home on a dusty road.

Actually, I was talking about my cousins. I had to stay out in the country with them at my grandparents. When my dad asked me about it on the way back, I told him how Chrissy and Blake were fighting all the time. I could hardly stand it. I don't guess he was listening. Next thing I know he stopped the pickup in a cloud of dust, pulled me out, jerked me about and then came the slap.

This is where I learned that my parents never fight. They discussed things to great lengths. Yeah, I learned to keep my mouth shut after that.

My dad is part Lakota Sioux and he somehow got into the Airforce and met my mom who is part Japanese, but if you heard him he would just say, we're American and leave it with that. He didn't last in the Airforce all that long, cause I don't ever remember living on a base. What I do remember is him working on cars and running a gas station in a small Nebraska town, until things dried up and we moved to Omaha. Folks call him Lou, and he's kind of broad and big. He didn't always look that way, but he's a drinks his vodka, likes his Husker football and his buddies from where he works, fixing trucks out on the interstate.

As of yet, I have never gone to the place he works. I take after my mother, Meggy, who can be so quiet and kind, but when she's mad, you better move over. She pulls hair, and so much more. But they make up too. Thankfully, they don't fight all that much anymore. Maybe it was hard times back then, and I didn't know it.

Of course, they aren't folks to get anything new. So you won't find state of the art anything in our little shabby place. After all, my dad doesn't really fix anything unless he can tighten it up just a little.

We stay out of each other's way. My domain is the basement. It hurts his feet to walk downstairs. I usually have most of my conversations with my mother when she's doing his laundry. We might eat together on a Sunday night when we can, and of course, the holidays.

But we seldom invite anyone over. Sadly, that's just the way we are.