Mother’s Day and Father’s Day for the adopted individual can feel a bit more substantial than for the average accidentally conceived “John” or “Jane”. I don’t purchase many big-ticket items – and, never do I purchase anything site unseen. So, the premise of ordering and purchasing a little person this way makes my head spin. I feel permanently indebted to my parents, as I was an incorrigible kid.
Returning from my parent’s house this past Mother’s Day weekend afforded me some unavoidable solace in the car during the long drive home. I pondered the time spent with them over the weekend, and was overwhelmed with a sense of gratitude. As an adopted adult, I know full well the dedication, sacrifice, and momentary lapse of reason that goes into adopting a lonely, disgruntled, orphan child. For a prospective adoptive parent, the want of child must far exceed the desire for money, time, peace, and sanity. It’s the kind of love that transcends modern logic. Adopting anything is a crap-shoot at best, and one fraught with a million unknowns. “Will he love us back?” “Will he grow-up normal?” “Does he carry any communicable diseases?” “Will we regret this decision for eternity?” “Why is he so miserable?” “If we punish him, will he hit us with a bag of hammers in our sleep?”
To keep the orphanage inventory moving, I believe there involves some crafty salesmanship on behalf of the adoption agency, along with a robust “No Refund/No Return” policy. Make no mistake, this is nothing like buying a car or Floridian timeshare that you can offload once bored and fiscally upside down. This is an all-encompassing, point-of-no-return, life altering commitment. I once adopted a hermit crab, named “Herbie”, from a Petco pet store, and had to sign a declaration that I would protect and care for the little crustacean to the best of my ability for the duration of its natural life. Had I known that hermit crabs can live 12 – 20 years, I would not have entered into such a pact, and left the unaffectionate ‘lil guy on the check-out counter while sprinting from the store elated that I had shirked the responsibility of regular salt baths, twice daily warm water misting, and constant humidifier monitoring.
I cannot imagine signing on the dotted line for an actual child – or, just how many 
signatures such a covenant requires. I was never privy to any of the documentation regarding my own purchase. My parents could have chosen the simpler, semi-vogue option of an exotic, foreign child. Instead, they opted for the multi-year bureaucratic stall and emotional investment of a good ‘ole domestic toe-headed kid, homegrown right here in the U.S.A. Perhaps they just didn’t want to pay shipping.
An often unrecognized advantage to an adoptee is the notion of “family”. When you are not adopted and decide to banish a sleazy family member, that person forever remains flesh and blood. Sadly, there is no knocking anyone out of the family tree. But, for an adoptee, things are much more loosely defined. The adopted individual can simply select whomever he/she is actually “related” to within the family org chart. I find myself exceedingly proud to be related to some of my extended family members, while I relegate others to the “acquaintance” pool.
I have successfully dodged these individuals at WalMart, BBQs, and weddings. I simply deny all pseudo genealogical ties, and remind them, “It’s nothing personal – I am adopted, after all“. It also comes in handy in the instance of a really hot second or third cousin – though, society frowns upon such unions. On the flip side, never seeing an actual blood relative is a reverse mind-bender. The realization that I’m as related to my own mother as the Easter bunny is unsettling at times.
I was recently having a phone conversation with my friend, Monica, whom was lamenting 
over not wanting to spend as much time with her biological parents as they desire. She implemented a “No dropping-in” clause to curtail their regularly unannounced visits, and was feeling guilty about needing to distance herself from her overbearing mother in particular. Her reason was twofold. First, her love life was non-existent, and would remain so with her mom stopping-in every evening. Nothing kills a libido like the constant presence of a parent. Additionally, at 26, she realized the constant exposure to her mother’s neuroticism had become contagious. Being 10 years her senior, I gave her the good and bad news of what I have learned regarding parents: “The good news“, I said, “Is that what you are feeling is absolutely normal – even if your dad’s name was Geppetto, and he handmade you in his wood shop.” “The bad news“, I added, “Is that as we age, much of what we had always perceived as conventional behavior from our parents, is now seen for what it is: Bizarre“. “What’s worse?“, I added, “Is the epiphany that you have developed these unsavory traits for yourself.” I qualified my point with a couple examples of my dad’s behavior – a man I will always admire and revere.
My dad has honed a lengthy array of questionable habits since retiring and facing the sudden influx of time. One of my father’s most perplexing – and, quite hazardous – habits that I failed to notice until his 60′s, is the rampant use of cruise control in his Lincoln sedan at inappropriate times. My dad would use cruise control to parallel park if at all possible. He can occasionally be seen on California’s crowded highways, his speed locked at 70 mph, dodging between moving cars like a game of “Frogger”, while seeking-out the next open space to navigate his 8-foot American-made steel hood, never allowing himself to touch the brake pedal or cruise control “pause” and “resume” switch. When I asked him “why” he insisted on auto-piloting the car wherever possible, he retorted, “It saves gas!“. Growing up, I just assumed he was a lazy driver. But, a cost-cutting measure?! I’m not sure how much this stress-inducing method of driving has saved him throughout the years – probably about $17 in total. It wasn’t until he drove me to my niece’s high-school graduation that the full ramifications of this driving style set in. After successfully careening and swerving around the slower traffic during the hour-long freeway jaunt, he found a last minute opening in the slow lane immediately prior to our exit, where he maintained his 70 mph setting down the off-ramp until a second before sheer physics would have eradicated us. Then he stomped the brake pedal in what felt like a giant parachute releasing from the trunk to decelerate rapidly. Sadly, none of this was for our enjoyment or the endorphins – rather the .87 cents he saved in gas during the trip.
Another interesting characteristic of my dad that seemed typical until I was an adult is his 
anxious hoarding. The man rarely parts with, or discards anything. If the family wants something gone, it must be covertly disassembled, stealthily removed from the house under the cover of night, and buried under the existing garbage in the outside trash bin. It’s best to do this the evening before trash pick-up, at the risk he has extra time to sort through the garbage to ensure nothing has been thrown-out of potential value. Otherwise, he will remove the object from the trash unbeknownst to us, and it will be cleaned, reassembled, and placed in it’s original location. Over the years, he has slowly turned his home into a 1,800 sq. ft. museum of absurdity. He is cognizant enough to know this, which is why he has compartmentalized his house. Certain doors, closets, and rooms are locked, never to be opened except by him when no one is around. Behind these doors are troves of random electrical gadgetry and worthless relics from yesteryear.
While his garage is packed wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling, with only a narrow circuitous pathway to the inside mail slot and the washer/dryer – navigable only by short, malnourished adventurers with a hankering and bravado for the unknown. Upon seeing this marvel of pack-rat engineering, one might think my dad constructed tunnels for the North Vietnamese Army during the Vietnam War. The real tragedy is that 80% of his artifacts are trivial scrap that include cheap tennis rackets, broken skateboards, my old hamster cage, some bicycles from the 70′s, dried paint cans from the summer in high-school that I painted my 1968 Mustang, along with countless tools and storage chests. Nearly everything my dad squirreled away in his garage is rummage – with the exception of a 1941 Ford Coupe. In the trunk of this classic he locked away all contraband confiscated from my brother and me in our youth. Old “Playboy” magazines we stole from under the bed of our perverted neighbor, a wrist-rocket slingshot, a homemade crossbow, pellet guns, Chinese throwing stars and knives (I was a self-taught, wannabe Ninja), and an assortment of other illicit material coveted by prepubescent boys. Since my dad is the craftiest man around, he has an impressive collection of tools. Not once did we have a repairman at the house, and he was known as “MacGyver” throughout our neighborhood. The drawback was that I never got anything new. Everything we owned was of industrial grade from Sears or affixed with a “Craftsman” label. If something did break, dad would quickly fix it and we’d be on our way.
This went for clothing as well, as my mom had the skills of a commercial seamstress. My pants and shirts all consisted of the “Toughskins” clothing line from Sears. This was clothing made from the weather resistant wool of wild Himalayan Mountain Yaks. If I was somehow able to tear something, my mom would sew it back together using only her grit and 50lb. test fishing line – also from Sears. She went so far as to sew actual pockets from the rear of retired jeans on the knees of all my Toughskin pants so I had little chance of tearing them. No matter how tough I tried to act as a boy, I could never be taken seriously with jeans that looked like patch-worked clown pants.
I am my parents’ son – adopted, or not. Though I have gleaned neither my dad’s penchant for cruise control nor his obsessive hoarding, I see many other characteristics from my parents in the mannerisms of both my brother and me – despite our best attempts to remain free of their compulsions and unexplained antics. And, unlike many of my peers, I have never needed, nor wanted, to spend less time with my parents. When I paused for a moment and looked at them this past weekend, I could see the age in their comforting faces. I knew I had a lot to do with it, and wondered why they ever took on the challenge of my brother and me. And, though they may seem increasingly bonkers as they age, given the choice, I’d choose them every time. They clearly chose me. I wonder if “Herbie” the crab feels the same way …
