I’ve been honest with the ‘rents all these years. Whenever they pissed me off, whenever I felt like giving them a piece of my mind, whenever they grated on my nerves to high hell, I let them know it. That’s honesty. It’s different this time, this time it’s business, and you never show all your cards in business. Minimum friction and let them hear what they want to hear. It makes sense to do so, they so thoroughly live in their delusions. No dose of the reality I’ve been giving them has had any effect. They absorb delusion as oceans absorb rain.
I could have laughed. I’m going to Oberlin for a couple of weeks and I may go to Chicago to visit Pasha with Amina, Diem, and Vikki. The ‘rents don’t know about the Chicago part. Anyway, the issue is which car I should take, the big Mercedes or the small Mercedes. I want the big one only because of the Chicago part, but they don’t know that, so I come up with some bogus reasons for wanting to take the big one. They silently give in.
Several hours later, they coming rushing in elated and bubbling about how I now have high tastes and therefore I now have the motivation to make money. Perplexed, I queried. Apparently my desire to take the big car indicates that I now have high tastes and prefer expensive things. !!!!!
Overwhelmed by disbelief, shocked by the inane analysis, I tried to clarify in the most sarcastic and condescending tone possible that the value or the price of the car had nothing to do with my preference for the big car. Then I made a mistake by saying something about taking the Rolls Royce if my tastes were now so high. That set her off on a speech about how all the money they make is for us, and of course if I wanted to take the Rolls Royce, I could. Yeah, right.
Her sincerity strains to please. I don’t doubt her personal belief in her concern and love for her offspring. I also believe that she is in need of serious psychiatric help. Her delusional state is nothing that a few years of psychotherapy couldn’t cure. And I’m sure some shock therapy wouldn’t hurt either.
