Do this For Me, Would You?

One thing that always fascinated me as I grew up was my father's ability to get others to do things for him. I'm not just talking about small things, either. But we can start there.

My father never seemed to want to do even the smallest things himself. I'm not sure if it was laziness or just the fact they he had his family and a church congretation at his disposal, but whatever it was, he always would ask others to do things you or I might not even think of. For example, my father loved to spend time in his library on the first floor of our house. It was adjacent to the steps going to the second floor where all of us kids would usually hang out when he was home.

The worst thing you wanted to do was to go down the steps when my father was in his library. Why? Because he would hear someone come down the creaky steps and, as soon as he heard footsteps, ask who was there. He would go down the list from mother to my smallest sibling until someone answered. I learned later on just not to answer, but when you are young and scared of your father, you would tend to answer.

Once you do, he always seemed to have some menial task for you to do: get him some water or diet coke, even though the kitchen was a 10 second walk away; bring in more fire wood for his fire; bring him a magazine/book/newspaper; get someone else for him; rub his hands/feet/eyes (I always hated this and is why I think in adulthood I don't like getting any type of massage). The list was seemingly endless.

But these are just the small things. I remember him always asking my mother to do his dirty work for him. When I say this, I mean he would ask her to call the landlord for an extension on our rent, to call up someone at his church and ask him for money, or to meet with clients he hasn't filed cases for yet and try to give them an excuse as to why they shouldn't ask for a refund. If my mother wasn't available, he would get someone else in his congretation to do it.

He even would ask one person in our congretation to ask another church member if my father could borrow money from them or get a car loan for him, instead of asking them himself.

Maybe it was his pride combined with laziness and a fear of rejection. But when I was growing up a favorite phrase of his was "Do this for me, would you?".