I've waited until today to write this. I was too angry last night. But I'm still angry today. More so, really. I had dinner with my parents last night. It was a disaster. Not surprising. But I went into it with a positive attitude. I tried, goddammit.

Claire went along to pose as my girlfriend. My parents think I'm gay. Or think I might be. I don't bring girls home to meet them. This means I'm gay. Right? It's never crossed their minds that they might just be fucked up. Their son might be embarassed by them.

Oh, yeah. Cute chick. I like her. We date. Hit it off. Hey! I want you to meet my father. She meets parents. She runs screaming. Until someone has gotten to know me, I don't want them to meet my parents. Don't give them the chance to think that's what I'm going to be when older.

Thanks for going along, Claire. I do realize what an imposition that was. I'm sure you had better things to do. But you did me a favor and I owe you big. Even if things didn't turn out so well.

I should probably explain this. Things started out well enough. Generalities. I think my folks were on their best behavior at first. They hadn't seen me in six months. Patching things up and all that. But after we sat down to dinner, Dad started interviewing Claire. Wanting to know about her beliefs. Her political leanings. Her upbgringing. When she gave safe, neutral answers, he challenged her.

This didn't go over well with me. There were words. Claire played nice. Amazingly so, considering the grilling she got. But Claire is Claire. She finally returned fire. Dad, of course, got offended. How dare this girl come into his house and have an opinion? Worse yet, Claire explained in detail why Dad is wrong about certain things. Dad rejected her arguments outright. Which made things worse. No one dismisses Claire.

We didn't make it to dessert. I called it off. We left.

At first I was mad at Claire. I feel bad about that. She knew I was mad at her. I know I hurt her feelings. But it wasn't her fault. I realized that, and fast. I felt my hands turning into fists under the table because of Dad's bullshit. That wasn't Claire. I know that if we didn't leave Dad and I would have been trading blows again.

At first I thought maybe Claire could have just held her head down and took the grilling. Like maybe she started it by not playing the airheaded blonde. I was stupid for the ten minutes I thought that. Considering who we're talking about here (I love ya, Claire), she was incredibly restrained.

My parents are assholes. Scratch that. My dad is an asshole. Mom is just stuck in Dad's neo-conservative fantasy world. It rips my heart out to see her sitting there with a plastic smile on her face. Supportive wife and all. Dad could go out and kill kids in the street. Mom would still have the smile on her face. Ever the supportive wife. That's what The Bible tells her she's supposed to be. Or that's what she's told that it says. Mostly by Dad.

Alright. We're going to mark this one down in the "what was I thinking?" category. Never again.

I think I owe Claire some flowers.

No. I owe Claire some chocolate.