Holiday confusion
“Whoever gave this to me must really hate me.” This was my father’s response to the Christmas present I sent him. It was a subscription to Time magazine. He didn’t know the magazine came from me when he made this rather strong condemnation. Time was supposed to send me a note card that I could pass on to my Dad, but it didn’t arrive in time. So, on Christmas day, I phoned my father to tell him what I had given him. Much to my surprise, the first installment of the subscription had arrived in the mail a few days earlier.
My mother answered the phone when I called. She was the one who informed me of my father’s dyspeptic reaction. “Take your father’s comment in the spirit with which it was intended,” my mother pleaded. My father is pushing eighty years of age. I had no idea what kind of spirit she was referring to, so I stayed quiet.
“I was just as perplexed as you are,” she went on to explain. “I told him that nobody hated him and that the magazine was probably sent as a Christmas gift.” She even guessed that it was sent by me. But my father was adamant. “I’m telling you,” he groused, “whoever sent this really hates me!” Exasperated, my mother went over to see what all the fuss was about. My father flipped the magazine closed and shoved it in my mother’s direction. Suddenly, the source of my father’s chagrin was obvious. On the cover of the December 27, 2004 Time magazine was a large, attention-grabbing photograph of George W. Bush, Time magazine’s “Person of the Year.”
No wonder he was so upset. In my father’s eye, George W. Bush is the worst president this country has ever known. If he were to tell you so himself, my father would insert a few piercing expletives for added emphasis. This so-called Christmas present was like handing my old man a bag of anthrax. In the end we sorted out the confusion. We were both relieved. He was happy that the magazine was sent with the best of intentions, not hatred; I was thrilled to know that my father can still get riled up over the politics of the nation. I promised him that the Time cover stories could only get better from here.
9:33:20 PM  Stories
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