"You sound like..."

My father has a list of topics he runs through during each phone conversation that takes place between us. The usual... how are the grades, find any scholarships, talk to your advisor - get some advice... like any obedient daughter, I don't have to listen anymore to know which response to give to each command.

For some reason tonight we began talking about the "household." My father seems to have added this topic to his list of gripes and worries about my college experience. Am I helping out with dinners? Does everyone work together? How are we getting along? Perhaps because I had just done a load of dishes, (again,) and cleaned off the kitchen sinks (again,) and walked by the bags of trash (again,) that have yet to be taken out... I decided to be honest with my father and mention how things were getting "along."

I found myself blurting out in (I am ashamed to admit,) one of those "I'm about to cry - I'm a woman" voices, that my nickname has become soccer mom. I went into a list of reasons the girls have taken to calling me this, and ranted about how I've become the maid, neat freak, and disciplinary. I'm the one calling the "house" meetings, I'm the one frustrated at the growing pile of dirty dishes in the sink and empty dishwasher, I'm the one with the disinfectant cleaning off the raw egg from last night's omelet dinner.

So there I was, lying on my couch, (symbolically?) telling my father how much I hate being this way. How I wish I could leave my crusty dishes in the sink without it bothering me each time I passed by.

He then tells me to find friends more like me. And all of a sudden it dawns on me. There are only a few people I know like me. Oh, yes. He's like me. I'm like him. Besides my aunt and uncle (his brother and sister, minus the other sister who claims she's adopted and didn't pick any of these genes up at the store,) we're the only obsessively anal people I know.

So now, theoretically, I'm really crying. Not only because I've realized this whole time I sound like, and have become, my anal/perfectionistic/obsessive-compulsive father, but because tomorrow morning, there will be dirty dishes in the sink and an empty dishwasher.