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Parents always say, “When I was your age…” and then tell a story that involves extreme poverty, struggle and a Hell that could never resemble the charmed life You lead. I have always wondered if I compiled my dad’s stories into a book and then re-read them, would they correlate in any way to “War And Peace” or did he came up with the content all on his own[?].
Every generation before your own sounds so horrible. It isn’t until parents become grandparents that the next generation gets in on the secret.
“You’re mother never actually did the dishes,” my Nanna has told me. “She hid in her bedroom.”
Until then, I always questioned where my trait of hiding in my bedroom had come from. I hope that my grandparents are around long enough to tell me where my unpunctuality, inability to be wrong and vivid imagination originated.

I have never been in jail, starred in a straight-to-the-Internet porn film or worn pleather, so by all accounts, I consider myself to be the perfect child. Whenever I have found myself in trouble throughout my existence, I have always given the accuser a novel-sized list of worse-case-scenarios that didn’t happen but could.
“Yes, OK, so I spilt red wine on your brand new white carpet and blew the speakers on your stereo, but, you know, I could have killed someone. Seriously, imagine if I had killed someone? Imagine!” I have reasoned to my parents.
I would be imprisoned in my bedroom, and dream of the day when they would [eventually] cry, “If only she had spilt red wine instead of chasing him down the street with a machete…”

For all of my peaceful [perceived] perfections, I have a novel-sized list of waring flaws. My alcoholism, for example, is something I imagine no parent likes to be privy to. Even mine, the Original Functioning Alcoholics.
“When I was your age, I had to drink cask wine,” my mother has often told me, either as a hint to save money or a threat to stop liquid from finding its way onto her carpet. I have no idea.
My refusal to engage in any relationship that resembles something adult or functioning is also a point of contention.
“Are you sure it is your choice?” my mother has often wondered, either insulting me or the entire male populatio on the planet. I have no idea.
But it is my ability to balance a bank account worse than I can balance while drunk that really bothers them.
“I didn’t expect to be explaining this to my daughter when she was twenty-five,” my father recently scoffed, either shocked that he was explaining the concept of times-tables to me or that I was, actually, twenty-five. I have no idea.

While searching for one of those job things, my finances have been a joint effort between my dad and I. Meaning that he provides the money and I spend it. There have been many arguments over the nature of the amounts (mainly, his problem of spending too much verses my problem of not having enough to spend) and the discussions have always ended with the same two phrases.
“It was the alcohol…” and, “When I was your age…”

RG and I looked over my weekly bank statement, which reads like the West Hollywood Yellow Pages or an AA’s guide of forbidden haunts.
Page ninety-seven (or similar) listed various hot spots and figures, intersected with one bar charging the exact same large amount over and over again.
“How many times did you go to this bar and pay the exact same bill?” dad wondered, reasonably. It isn’t unusual for me to go to the same place and order the same number of drinks. Whatever is a multiple of ten.
“I didn’t,” I informed him. For once, honestly, I had not been drinking my life away under the dim lights of an overpriced Hollywood bar. I had been sick, see, and couldn’t physically drink any alcohol for the first time in years.
Further investigation established that a bar I had frequented over a month prior had recharged me on multiple occasions, for the one night I had been there drinking my life away under the dim lights.

There is something really depressing about finding out you have been charged for alcohol you were never able to drink.
“I mean, do I get credit now?”
“Yes, they will have to return the money,” my dad informed.
“No, I mean, can I just arrive at the bar and get free drinks?”
It turns out, the economy does not work that way and I have a lot to learn. But, for the first time in my life, my lack of funds was not a direct result of my spending them. A bar had spent them for me. I never thought that I would be the Middle Man cut out of that particular process.

There is something really satisfying about proving your parents wrong and not making a mistake they expected you to make. I imagine it is similar to the feeling grandparents have when they can corrupt their own child’s child and then not have to take responsibility for it.
“She was sick, see,” my grandfather used to report back to my mother. “So I gave her some scotch for her cold.”
One day, kids will wonder why all of my stories start with, “That time I was drunk…”, and I will proudly be able to say, “When I was your age, my Pa introduced me to alcohol…”