I'm not the only one with DadStories

` I also have a half-brother, whom I've always called 'Brother' for some really strange reason. Though he moved out when he was eighteen (and I was nine), he's still somewhat affected by my dad's insane criticisms. Earlier this year, Brother did say to me, while ranting about Dad, that he's had this inferiority complex instilled by my self-righteous father all this time, but was really starting to realize that what my dad thinks of him doesn't matter. Dad's just an asshole. And I wouldn't use that word unless I really meant it. So who cares what he thinks?

` But wanna read something funny? Brother (oh, that looks so weird in writing!) apparently did something really amazing to rebel against my dad that he never found out about - and it's really friggin funny! Mua ha ha ha ha haaa!

` Yes, from the beginning, my brother (half-brother, anyway) has really feared my dad, and later on, hated him. When Bro was really little (way before he was even a sibling at all), my dad would ask; "Hey, you wanna play Coleco?" Brother would whimper; "Do I have to?"
` Why? Because Dad would get really angry when he lost. There was this one game where they piloted little, goofy tanks, and my dad would say; "Hey, move your tank out of there so I can shoot you." And when Bro didn't, Dad was not usually able to win. And when Dad was not able to win, you'd have this;
` "GOD DAMMIT! YOU DON'T LET ME WIN, YOU LITTLE BASTARD!"
` Storming around the house and ranting, screaming at my mom because he's the sorest loser of anyone I've ever known.

` From what I gather, my dad was a baby about everything since my mom married him. Now, around when I was born, Bro went to boy scouts, where he learned that the other kids and their dads absolutely hated my dad's guts! They'd say; "Is that that Jerry guy's car? God I hate that guy!" and stuff. Hearing that comment was the first time my brother learned that he wasn't the only one who loathed his stepfather.
` Another thing that greatly annoyed the people in Troop 507, was that, after scout meetings, Dad would hang around with the last person to leave and not let them go home until hours later - my mom actually thought the meetings were supposed to end after nine! Not only did they hate that, but my brother did too, because Dad didn't let him ride home with anyone else.

` Nifty Fact: Medina Boy Scout Troop 507 has unique patches and brands for their picnic tables. My dad was behind that - I think Mom actually drew it, and he colored it in - it's supposed to be a cartoon bee, though it's kinda creepy. I know this for a fact because I saw the paper prototypes when I was a kid and asked what they were for.

` Another thing he tells me about was when Dad would make him go clothes shopping and buy pants, he'd do the 'belt loop tug' in front of a cute sales girl and say "Does it fit in the crotch?" Not only for pants that he hadn't tried on before, but all the pairs of the exact same kind of jeans of the same size that he was going to buy.
` Apparently, Dad was under the impression that they'd somehow be a lot different from one another.
` Well, that's DadLogic for you.

` In junior high and high school, Bro's life was especially bad for an entire year because for all that time, he was grounded! He wasn't allowed to go anywhere besides school or work and wasn't allowed any privacy for the half hour he was allowed to talk on the phone. Why? I think it was because of the incident where Dad thought Bro had been 'hot-roddin'' around in his car, even though he very well knew that the gas gauge frequently read lower than the actual level for some reason. Dad, of course, being Dad, didn't care why he appeared to be missing some gasoline. He just wanted Brother to suffer his wrath.
` He said; "If it wasn't you, then I'm going to stay up all night and wait for the son of a bitch who drove off with my car."
` Bro said; "And I'll stay up all night with you, because I sure as hell know it wasn't me."
` Naturally, though Bro wasn't really the rebellious type, Dad was doing a lot more than cramping his style - a bit of retaliation was in order.

` Sure, he couldn't do anything directly - that would involve another year of grounding - so one of the things he did was to buy an entire slew of cars - a Dodge Charger, a Buick Skylark, a Pontiac (Sunfire, I think), and a Volkswagon Beetle - all without my dad's knowing! (My mom didn't know either, until recently.)
` Way to go, Bro! So, how the hell did he pull that off?
` He parked them in either his friend's driveway, or in the somewhat nearby parking lot of GOW Printing, where he worked. He also got a Toyota truck, which my dad did know about because he began parking it in the driveway. Dad protested it, but at least Bro's little truck lasted ten years - longer than any of Dad's vehicles! (One of them being a dorky, green Mercury Bobcat with stripe-decals and an orange interior. Three weeks after Dad gave it up to Bro (on the edge of mechanical failure), it suddenly burst into flames, and guess who got the blame?)

` Just knowing that Bro was able to dupe Dad, I'd say, is quite satisfying. I wasn't nearly competent enough to rebel against him - mostly because I didn't realize that he was even the slightest bit mean or unfair, so I didn't think I was justified. Really - I thought all that was just my perception and wouldn't allow myself to think of him in a bad light because of the way he demanded that I idolize him.
` Honestly, I think my biggest rebellion was to put pickle brine in an icky spice cake he'd made when I was about twelve. Why? Because it was supposed to be for me, my friend, and her friends at an outing. Just for us. Except... he knew I didn't like spice cake. So he deliberately made it just for them and excluded me entirely.
` You know, that kind of thing.
` I was so mad, I was like; "That's not fair! They get to have cake but I don't!" I had learned to be a sore loser from him (though he did this kind of thing often enough), so I decided that I'd rather not see them eat cake in front of me: That's why I made it all pickly. Apparently, the cake was also for him, even though he wasn't invited to our meeting, so he cut a piece and tried it. And... he started giggling (a bad sign) about how weird it tasted. He asked what I put in it, still grinning, and I told him.
` There was much yelling about how much of a rebellious bitch I supposedly was and so I was grounded from going to see my friend at all.
` Honestly, though, that was about the best I could do in that area. Other things I did, when he screamed at me for rebelling against something, were either his own delusions, or else I was probably acting out of my deep fear for him. So those things don't count.

` Ooh, to buy cars with my own money for about three or four hundred bucks a pop and then hide them from him. Now that's something that would piss him off... if only he knew.... But that wasn't the last thing my brother's done that would irritate him greatly, which he told me about several weeks ago.
` Now, clueless as ever, Timmy Pierson the Amazing Neandertal Man, apparently never found out where my dad had gone to, so when Brother ran into him at the Drug Mart parking lot, he asked where my dad was. Bro told him Las Vegas, somewhere.
` To Bro's surprise, Timmy said; "Really? I was just planning a trip there! I'll have to look him up in the phone book."
` Bro grinned and said; "No kidding! Well, you do that."
` (No, we don't really hate Timmy - he's actually a nice guy - we just like to make fun of him and most of his family for being both stone-age and modern - like the Flintstones, but the other way around.)
` Just the vision of my dad opening the door and thinking to himself; 'What is that goober cave man doing here?' is also a very nice thought, and I'm laughing about it right now.

` Boy, I can't remember the last time I laughed like this...
` Oh, yeah I can - the other day when Edgewalker was surfing through streaming internet TV and we saw a really alienating part of Santa Claus Conquers The Martians on Mystery Science Theater 3000. Yeah, this is like that, except less sounds of revulsion.