28.
Buddy of mine shared this one. He told his wife’s parents he liked their Christmas ham at the first family function he was invited to. They took that as he loved ham in general.
Ten years later it’s the only food they have at any meal where it’s him, wife and kids and the inlaws. They have dinner twice a month, it’s always ham. They send him ham-centric gift baskets every year on his birthday at work. Every holiday it’s ham, ham, ham, at every meal. They took a 3 hour detour last year to get a picture of some sign in Ham Lake MN or a postcard or something and thought he’d be so excited when they sent him the photo.
It’s like they only ever learned one fact about him and it was he likes ham. At this point I’m not sure they remembered his name and heartily pat him on the back referring to him a their ham-loving son in law because they’re too embarrassed to ask ten years in and employ complex, Leslie-Nielsen-level schemes to get someone to steal his wallet or get someone to say his name that always fail.
He hates ham, always has, its too salty and makes his hands swell up so much his wedding ring can’t be removed. His wife now hates ham. He was just being polite.
We’re attending a christening of their kid next weekend and I’ll get to meat the inlaws in question. I will be asking them if they love ham as much as he certainly does.
I want to know if everyone in the family hates ham and they’re all just smiling while dying on the inside at every meal, passing the ham with anger boiling like a pot of hot ham water just under surface.
So yeah that’s his life right now, forced to eat ham because he lied about liking ham and he’s in too deep.
29.
People picked on my brother in high school for getting jumped by some wannabe “blood” thugs in the bathroom. Popular thugs, if you can believe it. It was relentless. His confidence and any friendships were crushed, cause, you know, people can’t be seen with the loser.
One day I was confronted by said thugs, basically talking shit about my brother, and in my infinite wisdom, I said I could box so they better back off. Something to that affect. Looking back, I cringe, but you do what you have to.
Needless to say, they did not back off. Somehow, I landed a punch on one of the kids that dislocated his jaw. Like, flapping around like a mouth piece hanging from a football helmet.
I became the kid who could “box” but never wanted to fight, which I guess gave me credibility. I don’t really know. Everyone and their hyena came to me asking where they could learn said boxing skills, how I’d learned by 16, all that crap. I’d wanted to just come out and say I had been lucky, but I didn’t want anyone to give my brother shit again. So the lie stayed.
Luckily, no one ever picked on my brother afterwards, and I did eventually learn some boxing fundamentals, but most because I felt like I was living a lie. Which I was. As a man, I have not had to keep up the facade.
30.
I moved to a new city, and got a new dentist. For some reason, the guy thinks I used to see him at his old practice in a town I’ve never lived in. I corrected him a couple times, but he just keeps bringing it up, so now I just kind of roll with it. He asks after my parents, which is easy enough…but we’ve had all kinds of conversations about local restaurants I’ve never been to and other random stuff like that.