I’ll admit it, around this time last year, I wasn’t too sure about the whole “being a parent” thing. I know it might come off as a little selfish, but I decided to ditch my nine-year-old son for a while to start a new life in Miami. However, as the money and the exotic allure of the city wore off, I decided that I would return to Travis’s life and try to be the father figure to him that I never had (I ran out of money).
Despite everything, though, he hasn’t accepted me back into his life with open arms. He keeps saying that I abandoned him, and cries every time I go out to have a smoke. I thought that I’d found a solution to this problem, going into his system settings (cell phone and personal calendars) and changing his clock back a year. Despite all of this, he still remembers my time away, and indeed, the entire year.
This method had much more success on my Animal Crossing island. I booted up the game for the first time in a long while and all of my villagers insisted that I had forgotten about them. I obviously hadn’t. This insubordination didn’t sit right with me, so I flew off to my Switch’s date and time settings and rolled back the clock to right around the time I stopped playing. All of those stupid little villagers didn’t say a single “I’ve missed you,” “where have you been,” or “I thought you left us to start a new family in the salsa city, Miami” ever again.
It makes total sense that they would trust the clock over their own intuition and lived experience. I just don’t understand why the same wouldn’t happen with my son.
I want to be a good father, but I swear to God, if Travis doesn’t stop whining and moaning and asking me pointed questions like “why do you suddenly own so many floral shirts” and “who’s Ivy and where’s Mom,” I’ll have to do something drastic. If changing his clocks back a year doesn’t fully convince him that I haven’t abandoned him, then I’ll move all of his clocks forward a decade. Make that kid’s silly ass think he Rip Van Winkled himself into the next millennium. Anyway, AITA?
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