When Grownups Stop Growing

The Piattos Incident

It's been 2 weeks since the "Piattos Incident" and my dad still has never spoken even a single word to my mom or my aunt.

I don't really know what exactly happened, but I'm pretty sure that "Piattos" was involved. Yes, it's that junk food. As stupid as it may sound, they love to fight over petty things here.

According to my cousin, who was with them most of the time, my dad was shouting at my mom, over "Piattos" perhaps, then my aunt berated him about his rude behavior. Then some heated argument probably broke, to which my dad, most likely have ended it with something like "wala kang pakialam!" or "huwag mo akong pakialaman!".

My dad has always been this way, he has this tendency to resort to brute intimidation (by shouting and cursing) when dealing with issues and situations, however small they would be. Actually, my aunt is just the same, but on a different (lower) level.

My mom, on the other hand, was influenced by these two, by being with them most of the time. She too sometimes exhibits the same behavior when dealing with situations.

The Unusual Birthday

After that incident, my dad, aside from not talking to my mom and my aunt, also stopped helping out in the store. Spends most of his time doing pretty much nothing. There's a noticeable "silence" and "peacefulness" in the house. We no longer hear his daily complains about the food (as mentioned in one of my previous posts).

The following Monday (September 15) was my dad's birthday, but because of the incident, my mom didn't even bother to prepare or cook any special meal. It was like a regular day. The Saturday before, my sister (with her BF Gene) brought some food to celebrate, but he wasn't around and never even touched the food when he arrived. My eldest sister (with husband Perrin) also came on Sunday, but I don't recall him joining us for dinner.

Come to think of it, we never really celebrated birthdays in any other "better" ways.

Negative Thoughts Attract Negative Situations

Just a few days after the incident, we learned that my dad's car broke, soon after he plugged his portable TV with a wrong polarity. By the way, the portable TV is now a paper weight. The 32-year old car being broken is old news, only this time, he had to replace the whole engine, and it took him a week to find a compatible engine and fix it.

He could repair almost anything, as long as they don't have ears. Using his car as an example, my dad, obviously has problems with letting go of a lot of things, including junks and most importantly his pride.

Meanwhile, one of our helpers, have finally, decided to quit. Although her reasons for leaving are quite unreasonable, I think what actually made her leave is the constant scolding she gets from my mom (mostly), my dad and my aunt.

She used to help my mom in the kitchen, my mom teaches her and instructs her to cooking tasks, but she always tends to forget things, or do things differently, which makes my mom angry from time to time and thus getting scolded by her.

But from a personal stand point, the scolding after the "Piattos Incident" was on different level. I guess that was the last straw for her. She disappeared for half a day, returned, then after 2 days, left again and decided not to comeback, as I predicted.

The Unexpected Response

Last week, my dad "miraculously" started cleaning and organizing stuffs. He has also disposed a bunch of trash which has been there for more than 20 years, something I never thought was possible to happen. This photo was taken in March of last year (2007). Note that the table is barely recognizable.

He started buying some plastic containers and sorted some of his things, which are mostly composed of electronic parts, screws, wires, and tools. He doesn't like storing things inside containers because according to him, it's very difficult to search for something hidden, so he prefers everything lying around in plain sight. Yeah right!

We'll just wait and see what will happen in a few days or weeks. This wasn't the first time he cleaned his area, the last time was probably 5 years ago, and 2 days after that, it started returning to its "normal" and "cluttered" state.

"Ang gulo-gulo nga eh", this is arguably the best phrase I've heard from him in the last 25 years of my life, referring to his desk area. Finally, acceptance.

Getting Nowhere

Being a person of great "pride", in other words, "stubborn", he tried to help out in some of the household chores last week. His attempt on the rice failed, it wasn't thoroughly cooked. He ended blaming my mom (not directly) for messing with it. I guess some bevahiors are really difficult to let go.

His attempt to make some ice tubes also seemed to have failed, when my mom got angry after seeing the imperfect water bags. My mom stopped bickering after realizing that is was my dad who made them.

The Mouse Trap Incident

The last event happened yesterday, when my mouse trap successfully caught a mouse. The mouse has been wandering around the house for a long time and the traps set by my dad failed to catch it. 2 days ago, I placed the mouse traps and my dad commented that it won't be able to catch mouse (everything not his just got to be wrong).

He woke me up telling me about it (while carrying the mouse trap), I told him I already knew about it and that my cousin wanted to use it in his laboratory test. He folded it and placed the trap vertically. A few moments later, the mouse started struggling, gravity might have played a role as well. And it could almost get away.

As an immediate response, I said that he shouldn't have touched it in the first place. The same way he always tells us whenever we try to sort or rearrange his things. Then he got mad after that, telling his rants to my cousin, something like "ako na nga nagmamalasakit tapos napagsasabihan pa, kaya ako na-bwiset", with stress on "bwiset".

I didn't realize that it has anything to do with the mouse trap incident. For me, it wasn't really a big deal. I have no idea where the sudden "sensitivity" came from. I said nothing after that. Within my thoughts I was hoping that he realizes what he have just said. Ha ha ha. :)