tonight we’re gonna price me like i’m $1,999 (extended remix)

“know your worth”, i was once told…

…and usually, you just have a ballpark.

but with one individual i feel i have an exact number – and it’s maxed out in the title of this bit. in reality it might be much lower; but for my own self-esteem we’ll say it’s that and call it good.

which sucks – ’cause the individual in question is my dad.

we’ve had a checkered past, he & i. my folks split when i was six, and i remember very little of him from then till i was out of college. there was a couple weekends there, then he got married, decided to focus on raising his new wife’s kid, and wasn’t one for parental multi-tasking it seems. i remember him from a couple family funerals, then a spring break where i got to witness how he and my stepmother raised her kid (i’ve never been so thankful for my mom) and then i didn’t see him till i graduated college. a couple other funerals or weddings after that, and that was kinda it until the early 2000’s when we had a some booze and a come to jesus at a mexican joint in amarillo, texas and then all was well…

…until i lost my job.

he had agreed to co-sign a car for me, but through some paperwork mishap it just got financed in his name. on the upside, great interest rate due to responsible old guy credit. on the downside, it did NOTHING to help my waning credit score. but when i lost my job he paid off the car, with my promising to pay him back eventually by selling the damn thing…which i’ve been trying to do. most of the debt has been paid, save for a couple grand, which is about what the car is worth – but nobody’s bit in over a year on craigslist. meanwhile, he’s gotten to where any conversation i have is ONLY about that. it almost seems like any call to my dad should come with a disclaimer some of us are all too familiar with:

although your call may be general, familial, or just fun in nature, federal law requires us to inform you that your father is a bill collector and any information obtained from this call will be used for those purposes

and there we are. hopefully i can sell the damn thing before the holidays, get him enough of his scratch to chill him out, and finally get a pic of his folks to do my other forearm since, between you and me, i think he has the one i’m really looking for and is holding out to get his dinero. i guess time will tell…