My dad is notoriously known for not telling us about family events or cookouts until the day of. And by us I mean all of my siblings and I… his kids. We, thankfully now, resort to our sister for any information about wedding, parties, cookouts etc. There were times our dad would show up to cookouts without even telling us about any of them. We’d see pictures of him hanging out with the cousins and we’d be home with no idea it was happening. Meanwhile he’s going around telling everyone he told us, and doesn’t know where we are. We basically had to call him and essentially have to ask to be invited.

I remember I had just moved out of the house into my own apartment, so it became even harder for me to get into the loop about plans. I wouldn’t know things until the day of if I was lucky to hear about things at all. Like my grandfather’s birthday party that one time. He called me maybe two hours before and he goes, “You coming to papa’s party. We’ll be on route one over in your neck of the woods.” This was the first I was hearing of it. His birthday wasn’t for a few days, how was I supposed to know we were celebrating it on a Wednesday. I stopped what I was doing and started getting changed.

This is typical of my dad, he then proceeds to tell me, “Alright we should be over that way in an hour or so.” and hangs up the phone without even telling me where. I naturally assumed it was going to be at Prince Pizza considering that was always our place when we went towards route one. We’ve been to a million parties there before. I didn’t call him back to confirm where it was and rushed to get dressed to head right there. And by head right there I mean I took the long way there so I could hangout with Mary Jane a little before I got there. It was only a twenty minute ride for me to get there so I had plenty of time to take the back roads and cruise until I got to Prince Pizza.

I got to Prince, parked my truck, and went right inside. The host asked me if they could help me and I just shrugged them off confidently, “No I’m meeting a party here thank you.” and walked right past them. I knew the place like the back of my hand, at this point my family was basically investors in this place because of how often we were going there. I walked to the back dining hall, where they usually sat us, and it was empty. No one was there. I then looked at the other spot they sometimes put us and again I was terribly disappointed. I did another lap around the restaurant just to see if they were hiding somewhere else and had no prevail.

I was then too embarrassed to ask anyone at the front desk and panicked, speed walking outside to call my dad and asked, “Hey where are you guys?” My dad does this thing where when he answers the phone he doesn’t say anything so we always have to be the first one to talks. He answers and just waits for us to speak like we knew he answered. “We’re at Kowloon where are you?”

“Kowloon, I thought we were at Prince.”

“Nope we’re at Kowloon why would we be at Prince.” Like I was supposed to know. I couldn’t have been luckier with it being just on the other side of route one. When I got there I had to face the wrath of my cousins and my brothers and even my dad, who didn’t even tell me where it was, making fun of me for going to the wrong restaurant.

It’s at the point now where his sisters, our aunts, have started communicating with all of us directly instead of through him. I must admit it was wicked embarrassing strutting around Prince like I did. I must have looked like a complete douche walking with my head so high and so much confidence in that restaurant thinking everyone would be there. I’m just happy no one was there to see me walking around making a fool of myself. I’ll settle for whatever jokes they came up with. I know now to not rely on my dad for plans or detail anymore. He doesn’t tell me shit, guy doesn’t even say hi when he answers his phone.