She doesn't want a Rolex
This morning I called my parents to chat during the interminably long drive to Siler City. I was greeted by my father's half-Irish-half-Chinese "Helllooooooooooooooo," which serves to ward off any telemarketers (so that they might think they've reached the wrong house, that couldn't be the voice of one Fred Rotondaro, could it?) Once he'd confirmed that I was, indeed, his daughter, my father told me all about how my mother was "abusing" him because he'd forgotten to buy milk. I could hear her in the background, asserting that buying the milk is "his job" and that she'd asked him to do it, and he hadn't. Later on in the conversation we got to talking about things I wanted for Christmas. My dad put me on speaker and said he was holding the phone up over his head as he lay in bed so that my mom could hear me clearly and talk to me as she moved from bedroom to bathroom, getting ready for work. I asked my father what he wanted for Christmas and before he could fully answer the question my mother loudly interrupted, clearly not over the horror that she'd met upon attempting to have a decent breakfast, "MILK. Cara, I want milk. I want your father to PROMISE ME THERE WILL ALWAYS BE MILK."