My 73-year-old father just blew his entire retirement fund on a $35,000 Harley Davidson instead of helping me pay off my loans, and he has the nerve to call it his “last great adventure.”
For five decades, he wasted his life in that grimy motorcycle repair shop, hands permanently stained with grease, smelling of motor oil and cigarettes, embarrassing me in front of my friends with his faded tattoos and leather vest. Now that he’s finally sold the shop, instead of doing something useful with the money like helping his only daughter get out of debt or putting a down payment on a condo I’ve been eyeing, he’s “investing in his happiness” with a ridiculous midlife crisis motorcycle.
Yesterday, when I confronted him about his selfish decision, he actually laughed and said, “Sweetheart, at my age, all crises are end-of-life crises.” As if that’s funny. As if his responsibility to support me ended just because I’m 42. He doesn’t understand that I deserve that money more than he does – I have decades ahead of me, while he’s just going to ride that stupid bike until his heart gives out on some remote highway.
My friends all agree that parents should help their children financially, especially when they have the means. But Dad just keeps talking about “the call of the open road” and how he’s already booked a three-month cross-country trip, riding through places he’s always wanted to see “before it’s too late.”
Too late for what? Too late to be a responsible father who puts his child’s needs first? I’ve already had to cancel my Bahamas vacation because of my financial situation, while he’s planning to “live free” on the highway. It’s not fair that I’m trapped in my assistant manager job, drowning in debt, while he throws away what should have been my inheritance on some pathetic last-ditch attempt to feel young again.
But I had decided to take his retirement fund even if he didn’t give it to me willingly. I had all the rights and power to snatch that money from him. Or so I thought. The day before he was supposed to leave, I went to his place with a folder full of documents and a half-baked plan to guilt him—or worse, pressure him legally—into “doing the right thing.”
