My dad’s name is Philenium (Ph); my mom’s is Lisagen (Lg). My parents were born ions Ph- and Lg+ just like the rest of us. Also like the rest of us, they didn’t like being ions.
One day Ph- and Lg+ went to a really cool new club called Chemical Bonding where they were introduced for the first time. Well, lo and behold, the Electron-ic Music brought the two together, reactively, and I was quarked into existence.
When Ph- and Lg+ got married, we should’ve predicted the impending divorce. PhLg was not a stable compound.
I grew up in a nuclear environment, not of the cloud variety, but rather, the nuclear family variety: a mom, a dad, a brother, a sister, a dog, a white house with red shutters, and, of course, Nuclear Fission. It’s not a surprise to anyone anymore that American households have begun to break up. We’re completing the reaction started long ago by psychologists who labeled the family unit nuclear.
The nuclear half life fractured my family about 12 years ago. I was at that hopeful, exciting age right before the jump into double digits. If the metaphor of a nuclear reaction is accurate (which obviously it isn’t considering the linguistic liberties this columnist has taken in order to fudge everyday usage with its chemical counterpart), I should not judge the roles my parents might have played in the reaction—it was inevitable. Never mind, I hate them.
Even less of a surprise then, must be the new compounds my family drifted into. When PhLg fissured, the reaction emitted an explosive supply of energy that resulted in years of therapy, awakening of my dormant homosexuality, and the re-releasing of the unstable ions Ph- and Lg+. To compensate for the irritable states (as I will euphemistically label my parents’ regard for each other), lawyers came into the pictures to ensure that no reaction ever took place between them again (and by reaction I mean scowling, fighting, yelling and glaring).
So once again my parents were ionized, lonely ions swimming in singleness like our ancestors Primordial Goo.
What better way to neutralize my parents then to marry them off? My stepmother, Melindagen (Mn), and my stepfather, Markium (Mk), got dunked into our chemical stew.
So to summarize the equation:
PhLg + 14 years of unhappy marriage = Ph- + Lg+
Ph- + Lg+ + Mn+ + Mk- = PhMn + MkLg
Thank god the summarizing didn’t start off with my stepparents together. Unfortunately it turns out 14 years of one’s existence might end up being a mere evaporating catalyst.
The chemical reaction transformed us into the next in American home life. When trying to classify this post-half-life creation, all I can say is they have become Buying Unusually Large Quantity (BULQ) monsters.
And they really are monsters, monsters who horrifyingly parody the American dream of material accumulation. We are emblems of America’s culture of BULQ monsters. Sam’s Club, Bob’s, Costco, whatever your naughty bulk pleasure, we’re drifting into a world of excess, over-preparedness and I-have-so-much-food-I’ll-never-have-to-leave-the-house-and-talk-to-my-evil-scary-neighbors-ness. While some people buy small things in bulk like canned soup and powdered milk, my family buys things in bulk that would be best left existing in quantities of “one.”
Weddings, cars, refrigerators and homes top the list. The concept of buying these things in bulk sounds patently absurd, and thus I’m sure is hard to conceptualize, but bear with me. In the five years after the divorce, my mother, father, and two stepsisters got married. Okay four weddings. My father has gone through five cars, two dogs, and four houses. My mother has gone through three houses, two fridges, and three freezers. Okay, five cars, two dogs, seven houses, two fridges and three freezers.
My only explanation for this absurdity is compensation for a troubling divorce, or perhaps even more frightening, preparation for an impending half life (because radioactive chemicals love to divide). My parents reacted in the only way ions know how: they freaked out. So last week when my mom told me she had bought a new house, so we’re moving in December, I didn’t even flinch. This kind of behavior is to be expected from the chemical compounds I call my parents.
This is Michaelium (Me, a noble gas) farting goodbye.
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