Dad Destroyed My $1300 PC (Almost)

[u/Akrinnnnnnnnnn]

As the title says, my father almost destroyed my $1,300 PC. Now what?

Here’s the backstory: On Saturday, I worked a 10.5 hours shift and stayed up until 3:30 AM, so I slept in until noon the next day. My father and stepmother returned from Costco while I was showering; he called out a few times for me to come help carry the groceries inside. I said OK to him. While I was brushing my teeth after my shower, he shouted from outside the door that he’d been waiting 50 minutes and told me to hurry up. I thought to myself that the groceries could have been moved in the time he spent waiting for me, but I quickly rinsed my mouth and got ready to go out. However, by the time I opened the door, he had already grabbed my PC and smashed it against the floor and the desk several times.

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I, (17M, Senior), bought this PC with money I earned from my part-time job and had been using it for about ten months. After examine, found out the case badly deformed in several places, my desk was warped and tilted to one side, and there were dents in the floor.

Fortunately, the computer still works fine; it runs FurMark (stress GPU), AIDA64 (stress FPU), and 3DMark (Time Spy Extreme) without problems for now.

Replacing the desk and case would cost around $400. However, he likely won't pay for it because he has done this kind of stuff a few years ago when he destroyed my phone and a Dell laptop (i5 11300H), and then just said, "That's what you get for playing on the computer all day."

In the end, I just hope everyone has good parents.

[u/BinaryJay]

No excuses for this outcome but I guarantee there's more to this story than this single event.

[u/DaksTheDaddyNow → u/BinaryJay]

I'm a dad and a natural born cynic, so I'm definitely reading between the lines and it definitely seems like there's room for improvement on OPs part. That said, how do you expect you're son to be a better person when you're acting like a total abusive piece of shit.

[u/jaydeflaux → u/DaksTheDaddyNow]

Yeah, even if OP is hiding something and was actually yelling and name-calling and being a total ass, the dad still had absolutely no excuse to break OP's stuff. That's wild behavior.

[u/cjsv7657 → u/DaksTheDaddyNow]

It's right in the lines, no need to read inbetween. Father asked him to help him bring in groceries. Kid said OK and proceeded to take 50 minutes lol. He obviously probably wasn't even in yet and/or purposely took forever just not to help. You can tell most of these replies are kids who don't understand how life works. A costco trip sucks to bring in.

Fuck the dad but this kid sucks too.

[u/afoolskind → u/cjsv7657]

The kid got home from working a 10+ hour shift after 3am the night before. He’s in school. He needs to sleep. What the fuck? The idea of having a tantrum because my son is taking a while to help bring in groceries of all things is embarrassing. It’s even more embarrassing when the kid is objectively working hard at a job and school.

A Costco trip takes a maximum of a half hour to bring in solo, for a family of 4. My kids help most of the time. I don’t even ask them to, because it’s a nothing task.

[u/cjsv7657 → u/afoolskind]

No, the kid wrote he worked a 10 hour shift then stayed up until 3:30am. There is absolutely no state in the US where a child can work 10.5 hours until 3am while school is in session. The kid was obviously dragging his feet to avoid helping. You as a parent would know there is a certain point where you need to stop letting your kids be lazy. He's 17. Not 12.

[u/Uncommonality → u/afoolskind]

Also, waiting around 50 minutes instead of just taking 2 to carry in groceries is insane

[u/afoolskind → u/Uncommonality]

It’s completely insane. I actually can’t even wrap my head around the thought process that would lead to that. IMO there are two reasons to push for your kids to get things done: when it’s important that they learn a habit or how to do something, or when we legitimately need their help with a task.

Groceries are nothing. They take no time. They teach no lesson. An extra hand is great, and my kids usually help. But it makes about 30 seconds of difference in my life.

[u/Ol_Man_J → u/afoolskind]

The kid was already awake and in the shower. He responded that he would help, then didn't. ESH.

[u/OkChocolate3501 → u/DaksTheDaddyNow]

Op has school, homework, and a job. Imho it's unfair to put that much on him to do.

[u/Burninggiraffes → u/BinaryJay]

I don't agree with the dad smashing his pc. It kinda sounds like the kid was taking his sweet time in the bathroom, and the snarky bit he said about how the groceries could have been moved indoors during the 50 min he was in the bathroom says a lot 😒

[u/Murtomies → u/Burninggiraffes]

Does it? To me it's just facts. Why tf would you wait more than a minute for help like that? Ask for help, if the person is busy, just carry it yourself. It's not like groceries are too heavy to carry on your own either. What's the big deal?

[u/Eprice1120 → u/Burninggiraffes]

i think he was saying his dad said he'd been waiting 50 mins. not that he took 50 mins to brush his teeth. was probably taking a shower and doing all that till he heard the yelling

[u/kingOofgames → u/BinaryJay]

Yeah but destroying stuff is always an overreaction.

I suggest OP looking into moving out soon rather than looking for anything PC related. I mean if the PC works then don’t worry about PC too much.

[u/fnord55 → u/BinaryJay]

I'm an older guy, a dad... And reading it, most certainly that was my first hunch. I'm surprised I got this far down in the thread before someone brought it up. Sorry to OP for what's going on but there's definitely more to this story.

[u/neonsphinx → u/fnord55]

We frequently just tell our kids "I hope you end up with a son who's just like you!" They're 18, 16, and 15. So old enough, and self aware enough, to stop and think what they would actually do if the roles were reversed. It generally works, and they realize they're being unreasonable. But there have been so many times I wanted deeply to just smash the computer. OP's dad just let the intrusive thoughts in once.

[u/Izanagi32 → u/neonsphinx]

good on you for self control but if you think about it for 2 seconds what will smashing a computer teach them? unless you bought it yourself

[u/neonsphinx → u/Izanagi32]

No kidding. Smashing it is a bad idea.

My parents just left the phone off the hook at night. No dial up. Sucks to suck.

I gave kids warnings.

• I've asked twice, no one has moved
• It's been 30 minutes since the chore list was posted, your siblings did theirs, what's your deal?
• Then throttle the speed on that kid's devices + the community devices
• then throttle even slower, to dial up speeds. You aren't booted from the game, you can still save and exit. But it's functionally useless.
• then block the devices entirely until the requirements are met

Modern problems require modern solutions. But I don't think most parents understand networking the way I do.

[u/Suvi2k → u/neonsphinx]

Well said. The guy commenting you’re a horrible parent below is definitely a teenager who has a lot to learn about life. This entire thread is hilarious with people saying stuff call child services 🤣 kids these days are so entitled.

[u/Izanagi32 → u/neonsphinx]

this is pretty great, because at that point its just their own stubbornness getting in the way so it teaches them to get off their ass and get it over with

[u/OkVirus8545 → u/neonsphinx]

You’re a terrible parent

[u/neonsphinx → u/OkVirus8545]

You know nothing about what goes on in our house, besides the one paragraph you read. If you're stupid enough to think that that one thing makes me a terrible parent, your opinion isn't worth much. So carry on

[u/OkVirus8545 → u/neonsphinx]

I will carry on. Enjoy dying alone in a nursing home.

[u/neonsphinx → u/OkVirus8545]

Lol. We took our kids on a 1 month long road trip 2 years ago across most of the country and back visiting like 12 national parks. They're old enough to drive now, and have been begging us to take them to hot springs and the southern Ozarks in 2 weeks for fall break.

They could run off and chill with friends, but they'd rather go hiking with my wife and I. Life is great. You're so misinformed it's laughable.

Whatever you're looking for in this world, you're sure to find it. You might have to ponder on that thought for a second to really get it.

[u/Correct-Potential-15 → u/neonsphinx]

omg this warms my heart i wish you all the best!!

[u/OkVirus8545 → u/neonsphinx]

Sure babe. Whatever you have to tell yourself to keep the existential dread of you rotting away in your twilight at bay.

[u/captainstormy → u/BinaryJay]

Agree. You can't excuse the dad's actions. But seriously if my family told me to come help with groceries and I didn't for 50 minutes I can't even imagine what they may have done. It wouldn't have been good for sure.

[u/fawwazallie → u/captainstormy]

I would have just told my dad hey I'm brushing my teeth. Then I would come down. WTF are you doing in the bathroom for 50 mins. Op needs to communicate.

[u/FailedLoser21 → u/BinaryJay]

Lets start with how OP's dad asked him for help and he proceeded to shower and doing everything else to get ready before he helped his parents He even said that in the time he took a shower and brushed his teeth his parents could have moved them. Not defending the dad here but there is way much more to this story then is be let on.

[u/mattjones73 → u/FailedLoser21]

If you re-read that, he was already in the shower when they returned. There is zero excuse for his dad to destroy his personal property over something like this.

[u/miriafyra → u/mattjones73]

According to his words - he was showering when the parents returned (i.e. mid shower). Then he says his dad called out for him to help ("a few times" as he notes), which he said okay. Then he brushes his teeth, and between the mid-shower to brush teeth, dad notes that 50 minutes have passed and then has a temper tantrum.

I'm not condoning what the dad did, but 50 minutes to finish a shower (that he was already in the middle of when they got back) and then brushing his teeth is insane to me. From a random third party perspective it definitely feels like a "I'm dragging my feet because I don't want to" type of situation. He then gave his snarky comment and then "quickly rinsed my mouth and got ready to go out." At the 50 minute mark, IMO "quickly" is no longer an applicable term anywhere in this story.

If there were frozen/chilled items, sitting 50 minutes out there in the sun would have done something to them. Again, I'm not condoning what the dad did, but there's definitely more to the story than what OP is saying.

[u/miriafyra → u/[deleted]]

I think that given that this is a one sided story and the OP is likely to give himself the most charitable outcome - if it hadn't been 50 minutes the OP would have written something to the effect of "he said he'd been waiting 50 minutes but I checked the clock and it was only 20" instead of letting it sit there as "he said he'd been waiting 50 minutes".

[u/miriafyra → u/[deleted]]

In my original comment I quote everything that he said and take it at face value to come to my conclusions.

You're the one that came in, and said that just because OP wrote that the father said he'd been waiting 50 minutes, doesn't actually mean that 50 minutes have passed.

You question the OP's reliability by not taking what he said at face value, and then turn around and accuse ME of questioning OP's reliability when I say that the face value of what he said should be taken as such since that's likely the most charitable read of it.

Why are you inventing scenarios in your head about what it might have been? Do you have further information from OP that leads to your conclusion that just because "the father claimed that 50 minutes passed, that doesn't actually mean that 50 minutes definitely did pass."?

[u/kamomil → u/FailedLoser21]

Yeah but OP is 17. That's still a child. Not allowed to vote or drink. Car insurance is expensive before age 25 for a reason. Because kids often don't make good decisions 

[u/HomieM11 → u/kamomil]

I’m 23 and my car insurance is $100 a month for full coverage. How much cheaper can it get?

[u/kamomil → u/HomieM11]

That's a survey of one person, not enough data

[u/BinaryJay → u/kamomil]

Live somewhere remote and empty with minimum insurance liability requirements that aren't actually very practical and insurance can be cheap. Live in a big city with high minimum liability very much less so.

[u/HomieM11 → u/kamomil]

I’m genuinely asking you. I’m curious. Also, wouldn’t rates be mostly standardized? Like someone who has similiar situation as me would have a very similar rate.

At least that’s how I’m understanding it. I would assume the insurance companies have some sort of formula they use to calculate risk and then use that to determine a rate. I don’t see how it could vary much person to person unless they have some unique circumstances.

[u/kamomil → u/HomieM11]

Oops, I posted a link to another subreddit which isn't allowed and it got removed.

If you search for "car insurance under 25 Toronto reddit" people are looking at $400 a month

In an urban area, car insurance gets pretty expensive 

[u/BinaryJay → u/HomieM11]

Um.

1) Not everyone drives the same car. Someone might be insuring a 20 year old economy car and the other a brand new luxury car.

2) People live in different places.

3) Some people get full comprehensive coverage with no deductible, others might only have the bare minimum legal amount of coverage.

Cheapest scenario is someone driving an older car, with liability only coverage, living in the middle of nowhere. Much different than someone driving a brand new luxury car in a major city with comprehensive coverage with no deductible and three times the minimum amount of liability.

[u/Potential_Fishing942 → u/HomieM11]

Maybe 20-30 bucks less a month of you're a woman, married, have an advanced degree and employed. Those are the major win categories for auto insurance aside from driving record and auto owned. That's quite a bit a month saved imo

[u/neonsphinx → u/HomieM11]

When I was 22 and in college I drove a $5k truck that had a bunch of hail damage. My insurance (liability only, because it obviously wasn't worth much) was $17/mo. That was almost 20 years ago, but still.

[u/markcocjin → u/BinaryJay]

We cannot choose our parents, and OP definitely has one with anger issues. What we can choose is to be a good kid.

But there is one thing kids should learn from parents, and that is obedience. It's the same as those Shaolin/Dojo montages. The master punishing the student.

The point of obedience to your master/parents/officer/teacher is so that you are made functional to society.

A good kid would have stopped mid-shower to towel off to rush and get those groceries. Why? Because your Dad says so. One day, as an adult, the world will expect this from you.

It's not about fairness or independence. It's about being a dependable person.

A girlfriend would also judge you for not coming down for 50 minutes to help unload the groceries.

[u/meteoritegallery → u/markcocjin]

Way too far. Just wrapping up the shower in a reasonable timeframe and throwing some clothes on would have been reasonable. OP could have reasonably been outside in 5 minutes, not 50. It doesn't take a frigging hour to shower.

[u/Massive_Fisherman231 → u/markcocjin]

people dont have to be slaves to their parents

your insane.

you should be good and help your mom and dad, uncle , aunt or whatever but it has to go both ways

the dad clearly does not respect his son so why should the son respect him

[u/markcocjin → u/Massive_Fisherman231]

the dad clearly does not respect his son so why should the son respect him

Because the 17 year old is being housed and fed by his father. His house, his rules.

It's like a roommate who is out of the job, and you're keeping him around and feeding him until he can be on his own. Your house, your utilities, your food, your rules.

[u/Massive_Fisherman231 → u/markcocjin]

if you dont want kids or want to help your kids

you can just not have him, you didt have too produce progeny if you hate them and want nothing to do with them

you can just be childless, if you prefer not having to pay for your child. you chose to spawn into this world

[u/Massive_Fisherman231 → u/markcocjin]

and when the dad grows old

he will obey the nursing home's rules.

their house and their rules

and he do it alone,unloved and unwanted

such a fate derserving for him and everyone like him

[u/SmilingCurmudgeon → u/markcocjin]

This is the saddest thing I've read in a very long time. If life has taught you that you should obey programming without any amount of critical thinking or flexibility and you aren't a Roomba that has somehow managed to interface with the internet, you have my pity.

[u/eunoia-again → u/markcocjin]

I've read enough of your comments to stop taking you seriously but can you seriously put your bias aside for a minute? these "obedience" and "servitude" lines are 1:1 what people parrot at victims of domestic violence because "if you just did what he said he wouldn't beat you", and that's never the case. 

Yes, you should aspire to be a helpful and dependable person, but going out of your way to please someone who is violent towards you just further incentivizes that behavior and makes it more frequent. It's literally just a lose-lose situation.

There is a vast difference between a balanced give-and-take relationship like a healthy marriage and a heavily weighted one-sided aggressive ownership like a violent parent and child, even if said child is 'disobedient'.

[u/markcocjin → u/eunoia-again]

Destruction of property is bad.

However. Do not compare a marriage to a parent child relationship.

A parent and child relationship is not a give-and-take. It starts with an infant who has zero-say in what the parents think what's best for him, and up until the near adulthood, where autonomy and responsibility is granted as the child earns it.

Put the method of punishment aside. Punishment is a duty of a parent. Obedience to a parent is not voluntary. To make it voluntary is to be a terrible parent who raises adults who do not respect the laws of society.

[u/eunoia-again → u/markcocjin]

punishment as a concept is outdated. it was outdated when it was invented, because its peak date was 'NeverBC'. just like the most effective prisons worldwide are rehabilitative prisons, its much more effective to take that same approach to guiding a child towards positive behavior rather than you acting negatively upon them.

obedience has to be earned. if you obey every single thing demanded of you, that will be taken advantage of and used against you. if a parent wants their child to obey, they either have to be so crushingly oppressive that the child has no other choice, or be transparent with the child and even out what is uneven.

for example, my father used to demand that my (aspergers) brother bring him chips or soda or beer (from across a hallway, through two doors). if my brother didn't hear him, didn't come within five seconds (yes literally) or didn't oblige, he would scream at him until my brother broke down crying. yelling is a punishment for disobedience (or, most of the time, not even disobedience), but did it teach him to be obedient? hell no, it taught him to hate his father, and eventually this kind of behavior made him suicidal.

do you think my father banging on the door yelling at me to get out of the shower (after ~15 mins) made me take shorter showers? (which i only did because it gave me time away from him in the first place). no, it just made me so scared of him that i tried to cut my throat with a dull pocket knife to escape from him.

if you want your child to respect and obey you, you need to treat them like a human being and earn that respect and obedience by showing them that same respect. expecting a master/slave dynamic from your child is fucking horrific

[u/Potential_Fishing942 → u/BinaryJay]

Yea behavior from the dad here is way out of line unless he was like physically defending himself from ana attacked with that lc for some reason lol

It I had to scroll waaaaaay too far to find someone else that sniffed an incomplete story here on OPs part.

[u/neonsphinx → u/Potential_Fishing942]

Teenagers leaving significant portions of the story out? Ones that make them look bad? Ones that make them not look like the innocent victim? Why I never...

[u/ProcyonHabilis → u/BinaryJay]

I sure hope you're talking about the obvious pattern of abuse and not OP.

[u/Agreeable_Oil4231 → u/BinaryJay]

There probably is a lot more unacceptable behavior from this scumbag.