"Shooting Dad" by Sarah Vowell

Obsession. We all have one. Mine is chocolate. Whenever I can have some, I take it. Well not so much anymore since I recently discovered I was addicted to caffeine. So yea, the dad in the story was obsessed with guns. I mean, guns aren't very conventional and it is a weird hobby but then again he was a gunsmith so of course his work is going to carry over into his homelife. Well, maybe he carried it about too far. He didn't really pay attention to Sarah when she was growing up since she didn't like guns so he missed out on his daughter's childhood. Then again, she didn't give him much of a chance either; she never really tried to like guns or to understand why her father did either. I guess it was both of their faults. I can't say I sympathize with either of them too much because they both rejected the others way of thinking/life. He didn't like her art, she didn't like his guns, so they're even. The only thing I sympathize about is the fact that they never really developed a relationship. I wonder if they would have even tried to make a relationship if Sarah wouldn't have made the executive decision to?

My dad has an obsession too: tidiness. Everything has to be neat, from the way our shoes are lined up to the way we fold our laundry. It literally drives my family insane! Usually one of us (myself, my mom, or my sister) get's a "talking to" about how things are supposed to be arranged since we obviously don't know how to put things away (sarcasm). I remember one time in particular when I came home from a long day of school and threw my shoes against the wall. It's not like I wanted to make the house "dirty" but I was tired and was going to put them up in my room when I went upstairs. So my dad comes home and immediately notices the flaw in his "clean house". Immediately I knew I was going to be in trouble. So after he grabs the shoes (angrily I must say) and puts them with the heals against the wall and the toes of the shoes perfectly aligned, I heard it like there was no tomorrow. I didn't know that shoes had a specific way in which they were supposed to look. I mean, is that not obsessive or what?

But it's not just me that is annoyed by it, the rest of my family is as well. One time he got so angry at my mom because the clothes on the bed were messy. Well the reason they were messy was because she was cleaning out her closet and they were the clothes she was getting rid of. Well, being the neat freak as he is, my dad folds all of the clothes on the bed... still angry of course. Let's just say that day was not a good day for either of them, they both stayed mad at each other for quite some time. My sister hears it the most I think. Since her room is small she doesn't have much space to place all of her things so it makes her room look messy even if it isn't. I think probably about 4 times a week she gets yelled at for having a messy room. It's pretty ridiculous. He even knows why her room is messy and because he is a neat freak he still gets mad. My obsession isn't that bad. I think the worst thing that has happened from my being a chocoholic is that when I was 2 I ate a bin of hershey's kisses all by myself.