My father-in-law is blissfully unaware of how offbeat and intrusive he and his requests can be sometimes. His interests are assumed to be yours and of course you want to drop everything to follow up on them. He’s a very generous guy who means well, but sometimes… Oy.

The latest installment:

Over dim sum last weekend he mentioned in passing that he’d watched an interview with a bioethicist on Charlie Rose and asked if any of us had seen it. None of us had. “Oh, that’s too bad,” he said, “It was very interesting. I wish you had seen it.” And he proceeded to tell us just what it was about it that had impressed him so. End of conversation. Or was it…?

In today’s email comes the following, cc’d to me and everyone else who was there:

on july 1, charlie rose had Bioethicist, Author Leon Kass on his show.

try it, i think that it is worth trying to understand the discussion.

So now I have a choice: Spend however long it takes to download this thing, watch it, take notes, write up my talking points, and then call him so we can discuss this issue I have zero interest in… or just don’t and be made to feel guilty for it.

Guilt is leading right now.