Parental Guidance

   

    The amount of times this summer I’ve had to ask myself “Can I do anything without my parents' help?” is too numerous to count. It is a terrible, pride-shattering situation when you finally admit to yourself that your parents actually knew what they were talking about and that they were right all along.

     I thought this summer, when I moved out, I would be completely self-sufficient. I would support myself and not have to ask my parents for anything. WRONG! The sheer volume of things I’ve had to call my parents for is ridiculous and most of them concern very minuscule things too.

Let’s take my mom for instance:

    I probably call my mom every other day for the sole purpose of asking her how long a specific food lasts before going bad. She then explains that since I’ve had (blank) food in my fridge for more than three weeks, I should probably throw it out. Let me tell you, expiration dates come and go very quickly when you are eating for one person.
    My mom also receives the frantic wal-mart calls from me when I’m grocery shopping and “can’t find the little yellow box that you normally use.” Yeah, back home I paid no attention to what was in our pantry or what my parents cooked with. That was a bad idea, and just a word of advice to everyone still living at home: cook with your parents as much as possible!! It used to be cute or funny that I didn’t know how to cook, but it’s not cute or funny that I eat PB&J sandwiches at least four days out of the week.

And then there's my father:
    Man, do I feel bad for this guy. I'm sure he dreads every phone call he sees coming from me. My dad has had to deal with some pretty stupid conversations with me. Like when I was trying to hook up my cable; obviously he could not see the TV or the cable box or the cords, and yet I still called him to help me after I had already spent three days trying to figure it out myself.
    He also has to help me with "big kid" stuff that I've never had to deal with before. A good example of this is when I realized my internship company had started me on a 401K plan. All I knew about a 401K plan is that it deals with retirement. So when I first saw money being taken out of my paycheck for this, I immediately called daddy and asked him what this nonsense was and how to fix it. He explained the situation to me and told me to call the HR people. I did this and took notes during the conversation with the HR representative because I then had to call my dad back and ask him to explain what in the world they were talking about.
    Probably the most stressful time for my dad this summer, however, is when I decided to make his pico de gallo recipe. I literally called him every five minutes. "What type of onion goes in it?" "It's too salty, what should I do?" "How do I cut an avocado?" "I cut myself with a knife; it should be okay, right?"

    In all fairness, the situations I've been through over here could be ten times worse, so I'll accept the ones I'm dealing with. But every day I am reminded that, no matter how far away I am from my parents, I will always need them. Admitting this to myself was very difficult because I am very independent and I hate asking anyone for help with anything, but I have come to realize I would not be where I'm at today if it weren't for my parents.

 

***My parents: the best.***