most of my family is awesome. my grandfather on my mother's side however... not so much. he's 80 years old. came here from croatia in the 60s. got a job as a machinist/millwright at chrysler. lost half his leg in '83. with the money he got from that, he built a shop (like, from the ground up, by himself) which houses some pretty insane machinery. it's behind his house. he works in there on average about 12 hours a day. he's done this since forever. this means that he spends the majority of his time alone, in a world that he created alone. he also speaks terrible english. he's mad that i can't speak croatian (hrvatska) because it's hard for the two of us to communicate. he honestly believes this is my and my mother's fault, and the fact that he's been in the country long enough to secure a position as an english professor has nothing to do with it. he actually says "english is stupidity" on the basis that it's all stolen from other languages. he thinks it's dishonest, and the fault of the jews. i told him that we admit to stealing the language, as can be observed in any decent dictionary, but he doesn't hear it. i also told him that most languages (save the ones being used in remote tribes and such) - including croatian - have roots elsewhere. again, in one ear and out the other. i think on this matter he's actually just frustrated that he didn't take time to learn english, which, when coming from a germanic background, is understandable because we use letters that you can't hear and blah blah blah.
he enlists my help in his garage quite often. my hands are relatively small and very dextrous in comparison to his enormous meat-hooks, and i'm obviously more mobile due to both my legs being in tact. when i moved to the city he lives in recently i was kind of excited. i thought me and my g-pa could spend time bonding and he would teach me things and we would laugh and tell stories and so on and so forth. i had no idea what was ahead of me.
for one, he doesn't ask for help. he basically says that it's going to happen. being that i don't want to cause ripples i just kind of go along with it. i just do whatever he says that i'm to do. he's my grandpa, and as much as i'm not so fond of the patriarchal model, he's 80. the only reason that he's even alive is that his work creates within him the will to keep living. for some reason, i respect his will to live and don't want to infringe on it or make it harder.
for two, he talks to me like a total *sshole talks to his dog. he never asks for anything. he demands it and commands it. he's basically a dictator. he waves his hand in dismissal of anything i might mention that is of interest to me. when i talk about my ex, he says "forget her. all women are whores." when he needs something he says "zach you come" and when i've arrived he describes what i'm about to do for him, whether it be making him a coffee, going to get him a pack of cigarettes, or moving wood he's making a bench out of that i'm not allowed to nail together... as though i don't have a decade of experience in the trades.
for three, he's racist, sexist, and blames everything on the jews. i wouldn't even call them "the jews" were it not for my constant subjection to the term. i do understand that if one looks into it, there is a heavy zionist presence in the underlying workings of the world, but f*ck. oh yeah. he also hates gays. one time he was talking about how women don't like "sex in the rectum" because their nervous system isn't wired like that (which i disagree with, but didn't say so because i didn't want to get into my sexual history with him). he said hitler used to line homosexuals up and shoot them down because what they were doing was so wrong... or whatever. i asked him if he thought that was right. he looked at me like i was out of my mind and said "well yeah" and then reiterated the fact that women aren't wired to have anal sex... as though the only reason people are gay is that they like getting f*cked in the ass.
anyway. thanks for the thread trollheart. i've entered a new chapter in my life where i'm in very close proximity to a man i'm supposed to love who is made of pretty much all the things i hate. this is a good place to vent. muchos gracias.
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