PHD's Unite!

by Phil Hardt

What to do when you suspect your family is using your HD-related symptoms to possibly take advantage of you, and how to use these same HD-related symptoms to your own advantage, while you can! Phd's unite!

Scenario #1: My 20 year old son comes up to me (knowing that I already have poor memory), "Dad, can I have the $20 you promised me last week?" I'm flabbergasted. "What $20?" I respond. I honestly don't remember if I promised him something or not. "Remember, when we talked last Thursday, you said I could borrow $20." After telling him that I'm sure I'd remember such a promise and listening to him grovel a bit more, I finally hand him over the $20. What he doesn't know is I also have no qualms about stealing it right back from him the second he sits it down in his room and boy can I look him straight in the eye and deny it later (loss of social inhibitions). This deviant behavior allows me to give him lecture number 239 on being responsible with money and making sure that he don't loose it, or spend it frivously on alcohol. This goes right along with lecture 146 which is "If he hadn't have gotten so drunk the other night, then maybe he'd remember what HE did with it!" Right about now he begins to think that maybe he did drink a little too much the other night and did loose it himself. He just thought he was able to pull one over on me! I got my money back AND two opportunities to "lecture" him.

Scenario #2: My eleven (going on sixteen) year old daughter comes up to me and says: "Hey Dad, Wazup?" My word comprehension isn't that bad yet, so I immediately suspect "something" is about to be up. She says: "Dad, remember when you said I could go to the show with Jackie last week?" Once again, so as to not give her the slightest inclination that I don't have the foggiest idea what she's talking about (forgetfulness), I reply: "I thought that was next week!" She abruptly replies, "No Dad, that was tomorrow. Remember you said I could go with her tomorrow!" The tears start rolling as she blurts out to Jackie on the phone that I've forgotten again and ruined her whole life. After she grovels for a while I finally agree to allow her to go, but only after her room is completely cleaned and she has completed all of her chores. I tell her that since I was such an awful Father for forgetting, I will also give her $20. This I do in front of my wife. Little does either of them know that this is the very same $20 that her older brother had "lost" earlier. Now, I've killed two birds with one stone. Phillip thinks he's lost the $20 I gave him (so he won't dare come ask me again for at least a week) and Meredith has cleaned her room and performed all of her other chores quite happily in order to get the $20 and go to the show. Next, I go up to Meredith and tell her she can only spend $10 at the show because I know, and she knows she just took advantage of my half-a-brain. This $10 in change I get back I pocket as mad money for myself. However, the best part is, since my wife thinks I gave $20 to Phillip, and $20 to Meredith, the next time she goes to the bank she gets me another $40. Now I've succeeded in giving the same $20 bill away twice and getting $10 of it back, plus a bonus of $40 from the bank.

The events depicted above are ficteous and no inference, real or made up, should be made from them. Remember, it is better to be a witty fool than a foolish wit! (William Shakespeare).....Phil