Phobic

Chapter 6: How it all went over

Warning: This chapter is kind of depressing, but then it picks up towards the end so stick with it.

“Wait. I don’t understand. What does this say? ‘Play in a Veluz pocket trinket?’”

Dad was making that frowny face he makes when he totally disagrees with something. Even worse, he was making full use of his greatest go-to weapon of mass destruction. Myah calls it The Great and Powerful I-Don’t-Understand. He does, of course, understand, because he’s really smart, but he makes someone explain something so many times that it sounds even stupider coming out of your own mouth. Kind of like when you say an ordinary word a hundred times really fast, it starts to sound weird and loses its meaning. This way he can say ‘no’ without actually having to say ‘no,’ which he hates to do.

For example, “Wait, Sonny, I don’t understand…you want to buy what?” (He asks this a minimum of five times.)

“Um…I want to buy another video game controller.” (For the fifth time. By now I’m mumbling and looking at my feet.)

“Wait. You want to use your entire allowance to purchase a video game controller? I don’t understand. What’s it for?”

“Uh…so I can play with it. You know, like play….” (I weakly pretend to hold an invisible controller and punch it with my thumbs. Now I’m totally defenseless. I feel like an idiot mime and like yes, indeed this is a horrible idea.)

Then he looks confused, like I’m the stupidest person on the planet and this idea is just inconceivable. At that point I agree with him and I give up, thinking yeah, maybe it was a stupid idea. I usually say, “never mind” and walk away. He even does it with mom.

For example: “Wait, I’m sorry. I don’t understand. You want to buy what?” (The fifth time he asks.)

“Uh…I was thinking I would buy this new purse?” (She’s wavering.)

“I don’t understand. What for? What do you need it for?” (The sixth time.)

“Um…to put stuff in?” (Now she’s done. She lamely mimes holding up a purse by the strap. He’s right. Dumb idea.)

“Wait, so, I just don’t understand…you want to buy another bag? Don’t you have a bag?”  (This is his way of putting the final nail in the coffin. Note that he hasn’t actually said ‘no.’)

“Never mind,” she gives up and walks away.

See? This is exactly what was happening with The List. That is why I looked at Mom like, “help!” when he started The Great and Powerful… by reading the list all wrong even though we all know how to read Myah’s crazy writing. It’s totally psychological warfare. My dad's a mental ninja.

Mom came to my rescue. “I think it says, ‘Vegas Poker Tournament.’ Hon, maybe we should talk about this list later? Privately?”

“Well, hold on,” he kept going. “I just don’t understand why Sonny needs to do these things. Like, what would you play in a poker tournament for? You’ve never even played poker. Have you?”

That got me all riled up. “Dad, I don’t need to do these things. I like, want to, before I…you know. It’s a bucket list. Duh.”

Now Dad was stressing, because I reminded him that I was gonna die. I think he was in denial or something. He put his face in his hands and I could tell he was trying not to cry in front of us. My mom started tearing up, too. I looked at Myah. I could tell we both wanted out of there. This meeting was so not going well.

“Dad, listen, it’s okay. I mean, it’s totally not okay, but you know. Dude, I just want to do something instead of lying around in bed all day, like a...larvae or something. I don’t want to waste my time.”