"Feel Good Inc." - The Gorillaz

I'm not trying to make my parents out to be horrible people: They do that on their own. But I will say that I have particular memories of them attempting to be good parents. Most specifically, when the first

Pokémon movie came out, both opted to take me. While my father did take me, we were incredibly late, and missed much of it. Later, my mother took me (getting a speeding ticket in the process.)

Aside from Pokémon, but not so much, on one of my birthdays, my mom took me out to dinner with a friend of mine but she wanted to take me to Friendly's.

I'd never been there, and am usually suspicious of places in which I’ve yet to be, so I petitioned to go to Burger King, where I know I like food. After asking both of us where we wanted to go, we eventually did go to Burger King. Yet, on the way home, we passed Friendly's, and up on the sign said "Pokémon toys here", and I felt like the worst person ever. My mom had known that there were toys of something she knew I liked, and wanted to take me to dinner at the place to get them. This memory still haunts me to this day, since I accept that I’m an ungrateful bastard.

Unlike my mother, who has done great things for me that I’ve taken for granted, my father simply claims to have done such things whenever he finds my attitude to be unsavory to him. This is often attributed to, but not limited to: Me being sarcastic, me being right, me being liberal, me being a democrat, me being an Atheist, and me being rude to "his" family (his wife, his kids.) There is one thing he's done for me that I will always remember though. On the Christmas of 1994, I was at his house, and it was pretty lackluster. I got the regular stuff: Underwear, coloring books, Thomas the Tank Engine Trains, etc. Well, I’m assuming that one thing he'd wanted to get me wasn't available at the time, so the day we chose to take the tree down, a "hidden" present was in the tree. He gave it to me to open, and it was Sonic the Hedgehog 3 for the SEGA Genesis. Not only is it still my favorite game to this day, that will always be my most memorable Christmas, simply due to the element of surprise that was implemented in receiving the gift.