One angry man, and a Thanksgiving dinner un-invite

My first free weekday since the layoff, and I went to bed early last night because I wasn't feeling well. I thought I felt a cold coming on, but I seem to have dodged it. Whew. I woke up to an interesting voicemail, though. It's been a while since I've scored a drunken screed from Rob. This one was quite the ramble. Give it a listen.


Here's what he said, if you couldn't make it all out:

"Jason, come on, man, I know you're there. I know you're there cause it's a cell phone. You just saw it was me, you don't pick up. I don't think I'd pick up if I was you either. Yeah, I saw the book. Ray Donovan had a copy on his iPad in the store. I saw it. He showed me the, all the parts. You know, you said when I asked you, you said there's nothing bad. You know there was nothing good. I didn't see one good thing about me in that entire book. Not the parts that I saw. You never appreciated anything I ever did for you, Jason. Nothing. Nothing. I hope some day, you know what I think would be funny, your kid writes a book about you, someday, and you'll get to see what he really thinks about you, and I bet you it won't be good. It won't be good at all. I'll laugh my ass off. I'll buy a copy of that book, that's for sure. I'm not buying yours. Ray wasted his money on it. You can thank him. You know, don't come over here on Thursday. You're obviously not thankful for anything, anything I've ever done for you, all the things I've ever done for you. No, not thankful. And don't bother apologizing. I know you won't mean it. I thought I knew you better than that. Ah, fuck it. I'm disappointed."

Wow. Where to start? If he doesn't like the way I portrayed him, well, I can understand that. But that doesn't make it untrue. And these aren't memories that have gone hazy over 15 years. Everything was written as it happened. They were real emails, sent and received in 2003. The only changes were a few names and some punctuation here and there. I stand by every word. If he never saw himself like I saw him, well, Rob may have a point about my kid doing the same to me someday. I'm sure when I have a kid he won't always see me as the good guy, either. That's just human nature. I hope I'll earn credit for trying, though.

As for Thanksgiving, news flash, I wasn't going to Rob's anyway. I only went for dessert last year because Shane wanted me to try the apple crisp he made in home ec. I went for him. And Stephanie. It's always nice to see her. I didn't go to witness drunk Rob throw things at the TV when his football bets went tits up, as they always do. No, I'll be eating with Drew's family, just like I do most years. Over the years, I've had more holiday dinners at his house than at mine, for sure. I will stop in to see Janice in the morning. But she and Phil always go over to his parents' house, and one holiday in the smog was more than enough of that for me. So much cigarette smoke I could barely taste the turkey.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Hope you have somewhere peaceful to spend it.