「故事·听力」My Father Is Better Than Me And I Can't Take It Anymore
My Father Is Better Than Me And I Can't Take It Anymore
Hi, this is Jeff, and he has a story that he wants to share. It’s about his dad, one of the greatest men he’s ever known...who is, at the same time, the cause of a lot of his problems.
Jeff’s family lives in a really small town. It has a population of only about two thousand people, and it feels like everyone pretty much knows each other there. The thing about his town is that it was founded two hundred years ago or something by a father and a son. After the father passed away, the son became the one in charge, and raised his son to help him. This is a kind of legend that they have there, so if you’ve ever been to the town then you’ve probably guessed what place he’s talking about right now.
So the whole dynasty thing is now just the legend the local kids are told at school. But a lot of stuff in Jeff’s town is dedicated to “fathers and sons” – there’s even a special holiday!
So now it’s time to tell you about who Jeff’s dad actually is. First of all, his name is Jeff too. Yes, Jeff was named after his father, so for his whole life he hasn’t just been Jeff, he’s been Jeff Junior. Especially among teachers and other adults.
Anyway, in his home town, his dad is kind of a superstar. He’s the main guy on the city council; he does a lot for the whole community – he knows almost every citizen by name and, of course, everyone knows him, and people love him. There have been so many times when he made people’s lives in the town so much better. And if there’s something nice going on – you can be sure it’s thanks to him!
And, as you can imagine, Jeff has always been proud of his dad, ever since he was a kid. But as he got older, he started to feel less and less comfortable about things.
Basically, every time his class got a new teacher, the conversation with him started with: “Oh, and you’re Jeff Junior!” Seriously, this happened literally EVERY TIME. He was okay with it for quite a long time, but there’s always a point when you just get tired of the same things happening again and again.
Well it wasn’t a disaster of course; it was just one phrase after all. The worst part comes after. Every adult he meets has expectations of Jeff based on…that’s right…who his father is. So he has to be super-smart, creative, responsible and decisive – all these things at once, and when he’s only fourteen! So when something goes wrong (for example, he fails a test), then you can be sure they’ll mention his dad.
Luckily, it doesn’t work like this with his friends and classmates. They don’t really care about the city council and stuff like that, and they don’t know his dad well enough to compare Jeff to him all the time. But here there’s a problem of another kind. The chances are you guys know how your classmates react when you get special attention from teachers every other day. That’s right – at the very least, they make fun of you.
Over the previous few months, a lot of Jeff’s friends had started discussing college and what they wanted to do after they finished high school. He’d started thinking about it too, and he figured that he wanted to make movies, because…well, why not? And you see, their town was as far from the idea of film-making as a place can be. People just had normal jobs.
He wanted to talk to his parents about it, but he was a little nervous to do so. He wasn’t even sure why, as his mom and dad have never insisted on any career choice for him. But you can imagine, there was still all this pressure with people telling him that he had to be his father’s son and all that.
So it took a while for Jeff to get himself ready for the conversation. You see, things had started getting really serious. One day they had a big party at their house, and he was out with friends. So when he came home during the evening the evening, all the guests stared at him, and someone said to his father out loud: “Well, Jeff Junior is gonna start helping you out quite soon!” His dad seemed happy with this idea, and he just wanted to scream: “I don’t even want to stay here!” But he felt embarrassed and just walked away.
That was when Jeff realized that he had to make a stand. At the very least, he had to talk to his dad.