Dad Just Wanted To Watch The News

Growing up in India, my brother and I had a system.

Whenever our parents went out of town, there were certain things we knew we could get away with.

Stay up late. Eat whatever we wanted. Have friends over.

And occasionally, when we could get our hands on one, watch an adult movie we absolutely were not supposed to be watching.

My brother was much more committed to this activity than I was.

I'll leave it at that.

We were young, just getting to the age where girls had suddenly become interesting and none of us really knew anything about anything. Watching an adult movie felt like we were doing something incredibly dangerous.

There was no internet in our house. No smartphones. No private screens.

There was one television in the family room and a VCR.

So this required planning.

You needed the tape.

You needed the house empty.

You needed enough time.

And most importantly, when you were finished, you needed to remove the evidence.

That last part turned out to be important.

One time, our parents went out of town for two days. At some point while they were gone, my brother watched one of those adult movies. Then he forgot about it.

The tape stayed inside the VCR.

Our parents came home two days later, and somehow neither of us remembered it was still there.

My dad came home, took a shower, ate, and eventually settled into his normal routine.

He wanted to watch the news. My brother and I were somewhere nearby, completely relaxed. As far as we were concerned, we had gotten away with everything.

My dad picked up the remote.

Our VCR had this feature where if you pressed a certain button, it would switch over and automatically start playing whatever tape was inside.

I don't remember which button my father pressed.

I just remember the television changing.

And suddenly, the adult movie my brother had been watching two days earlier was playing right there on the family television.

Nobody moved.

My dad stared at the TV.

I looked at my brother.

My brother looked at me.

I don't think either of us had ever turned that pale before.

My father switched it off immediately.

Silence.

There are moments in childhood when nobody needs to explain what's about to happen. This was one of them.

My mother understood the situation almost immediately.

She looked at my father. She looked at us.

And then, very wisely, she got up and walked out of the room.

To this day, I respect that decision.

My father turned toward us. There was no point lying.

No investigation was necessary.

No blaming our friends.

No pretending we didn't know how the tape got there.

We knew.

He knew.

And he knew that we knew.

My brother and I received what I can comfortably describe as one of the greatest ass-whoopings of our childhood.

My father loved us more than he loved himself, but when it came time to reprimand us, he didn't hold back.

That evening, however, it wasn't funny.

The embarrassment was almost worse than the punishment.

I couldn't look at my father. I couldn't look at my brother. I definitely couldn't look at the television.

A few days later, we made the mistake of telling our friends what had happened.

For days, we laughed until our stomachs hurt.

Someone would pretend to pick up a remote and we'd lose it.

Someone would ask, "Did your dad get to watch the news?"

That was enough to start everyone laughing again.

And naturally, my brother tried to defend himself.

"It could've happened to anybody."

No. It couldn't. You had one job.

Take the tape out of the VCR.

I'm 45 now, and somehow that stupid little moment is still perfectly clear in my head.

My brother's face.

My mother's perfectly timed exit.

My father standing there with the remote.

And the instant realization that our lives were about to become very unpleasant.

As I've gotten older, I've come to appreciate my father in ways I couldn't when I was a kid. He loved us fiercely, but he also believed it was his responsibility to correct us when we crossed a line.

I didn't always appreciate that then. I do now.

Some childhood memories are important because they teach you something.

Some are important because they remind you how much your parents loved you.

And some survive for decades simply because they're too damn funny to forget.

Dad, I love you. Thank you for being the father you were to us.

And after all these years, I have only one thing left to say in my defense:

"It was my brother's tape."