Meet the Parents

Although PC had briefly met The Mother at my going away party (those mere three days after we met), TM had been largely unable to form a true opinion about him. But when contemplating PC's imminent arrival in Bozeman in August, The Mother's opinion was not what was eating away at my mind. It was the introduction to The Father.

My father is just a bit scary. Not the Meet-The-Boyfriend-At-The-Front-Door-With-A-Shotgun scary, but he's got a very intimidating presence. He tends to sit back and watch and listen and he doesn't offer up his own voice very often. To a young man courting his daughter, that silence can come off as down-right menacing. I had more than one pre-pubescent suitor quake in his shoes upon visiting my family's house for the first time. In high school I avoided the situation as much as possible and there was no way in HELL that I would have introduced the Speed Freak to my father. I did make the mistake of introducing The Ex to my parents - a mistake because I still believed that I was in a relationship that was going somewhere at that time and The Ex had already decided that it wasn't. It just took me about three more weeks to figure that out. The point is: meeting my dad is a big deal. A HUGE deal really, and I was just a bit nervous of how it would work when Prince Charming finally made it to Montana. I was actually more nervous that PC would be put off by The Father than I was of it being the other way around - PC tends to make an almost universally good first impression.

I never should have worried. Of course, I couldn't have expected it to work out quite so well as it did. Seriously folks, in the end I think if I didn't marry Prince Charming my family would disinherit me.

The Father took to PC like he's never really taken to anyone before. The Father obviously warmed to PC quickly and engaged him in far more conversation than I would have expected. And Prince Charming did the same in return. If I analyze it, I'd have to say that PC's father has always been very hard on him and I think has maintained a largely disapproving attitude toward his son and I think that Prince Charming was nearly overjoyed to have a male presence that was both friendly and accepting. It was touching, really. And I think that The Father began to realize that, although he never had sons of his own, he could gain surrogate sons by marrying off his daughters.

Now that PC is pretty much one of the immediate family, there are very few hurdles left to scale before he's given full and complete approval. This is jumping ahead in the story a bit, but the most important of the final hurdles is about to be jumped this weekend: I'm taking Prince Charming to Bakersfield on Saturday to meet my Grandfather.

Lyrics of the Day

"Everyone can see we're together as we walk on by, and we fly just like birds of a feather - I won't tell no lie. All of the people around us, they say, 'Can they be that close?' Just let me state for the record, we're giving love in a family dose." Sister Sledge We Are Family