misericordiam ad nauseam

A boy and his dad enter the van, squeezing themselves into spaces that in theory would house two bodies comfortably, but never really do in practice.

It is a familiar conversation. Boy asks if dad saw his phone charger. Dad says he took it and used it. Boy says that dad can’t just take things just because they’re lying around. Dad says he needed it, which was why he took it, and it was lying around anyway. Boy meekly–grasping for that pussyfooting but sufficiently direct argument–tries to claim that he has a “right” over his stuff. Dad laughs–“rights”? You? What nonsense!–and tells boy that you have no rights over your stuff, none of that is your stuff, try talking about “rights” again when you’ve worked up the money to buy your own stuff.

At this point, it becomes all too familiar, and I am surrounded by eggshells and a hundred Damocleses, all of which I, at that moment, desired nothing more than to take down, one by one, to stab in his face, which has become that which I have spent the better part of a decade on hating.