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"Still dirty after all these years
I stopped over at my brother's house last weekend to visit Mom, only to have him scream to get my attention and demand that I park out on the street because "your truck leaks a lot of oil". That's one of the important things in my family's life, and it brought back a few more.
About 15 years ago, as I recall, I was living at my parents' house again after surgery looking for cancer (not found, but still not forgotten) and the failure of hundreds of letters for employment to make use of my new Ph.D. I was tired, depressed, sitting on the couch, and laid my head back to rest. Only to have Dad scream at me to get it off the couch so I wouldn't leave an "grease" on it.
Not only did I not use anything in my hair because of asthma, I scrubbed and scraped it and my scalp every night with soap and my fingernails to keep from getting ugly wens. But there wasn't any point in telling him that. He knew for a fact that I was dirty.
Another time, when my uncle was visiting, Dad got infuriated about a toilet with a liberal spray pattern on the seat and the floor. This had not happened in the months preceding while I was there. But there wasn't any need for him to yell at his brother (a mostly nice guy) with a belly so big that he may not have seen his own equipment in many years, much less where it aimed. No, I was there. So he yelled at me. He knew for a fact that I had to be the dirty person who did that.
Fortunately, in another context but still related, Licensed Professional Counselor Julie King explained it all for me a couple years back at the local loony bin. "All that matters," she said, "is how people perceive you." And on that basis, they kept me there for 66 days until they were sure enough that I had gotten the point. Still dirty after all these years. Most illuminating, I'm sure. "
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