Rant of the Month: My step - step father, a.k.a. Fat Tony.

Having just come back from four days in Bretagne with Jenny and her Mom and step dad, I have a real need to have a good ol' rant about one of my guests, Tony.

Now Tony I'd already met a couple times, once with Ted in Dinard, then a few times in Wales while staying at his house. Tony is a pre-retired ex professor who plays guitar. Sounds cool right? The guy should be an interesting-knowledgeable-cool dude with all that!

How to best describe him? If I had to sum it up, I would say Tony is EXACTLY the person you DON'T want to invite to your house. he is the perfect anti-guest. here are a few things I had to live through these last days:

Tony is cheap. Now the first time I'd met him, I'd paid for dinner for five people with him not even raising a symbolic hand to stop me from doing so. This time around, I paid for every meal (we hit the market, not resto's) and all the booze. His contribution was to pay us ONE lunch.

Tony is impolite. He didn't thank me once for all that. Also, when the food is ready, he just sits down and starts eating. He also forgets to thank you for anything (I know I said it but damn!).

Tony is not helpful. He doesn't clean the table, doesn't set it either, and when he cooks he cleans nothing. When his wife helps you clean the appartment, he's busily reading the newspaper or playing cards on the computer.

Tony is boring. He's got two topics of conversation, and those are food and music. As in, the music he knows and the recipes he knows. And he's got one way of having these conversations: he talks, you listen. And his delivery is slow, plodding, and not helped by the fact that..

Tony is fat. now I don't mind fat people most of the time, but he has trouble breathing he's so fat, he coughs all the time (and doesn't smoke), so that when he gets to the end of a sentence he sometimes sounds winded. And he eats all the time! when we sit down to eat (meaning he's already sat and eating) he deosn't talk until he's cleaned his entire plate. THEN he will talk at you about, well, music and food!

Tony doesn't ask any questions. I guess in the mafia that's a good thing, but when you're trying to start conversations to strenghten bonds it makes things more complicated. He's never asked me a simple single question! so the only option I have left is to question HIM hoping he'll reciprocate. Only problem, to get him talking, I have to talk about music or food, and we're back to the "Tony is boring" routine.

And to make things even better, after two days Jenny gets pulled aside by her Mom who asks her if I don't like them - and Tony had also dared a comment saying "Marco his free with other people's wine" previously.

Of course I'm free with other people's wine - how else am I going to get through the day with Fat Tony than a steady binge from dusk 'till dawn?

la B.A.F.