Parent/child dialogue

The problem with two very stubborn people quarrelling is that there is seemingly no end to it. My dad and I share a very nasty characteristic - we can be extremely horrible to those near and dear to us. These are not your usual arguments I'm talking about involving which TV channel you want to watch. Our fights involve character assassination.

After email exchanges which were so hot we could have burnt to crisp the ISDN cables between Hong Kong and Seoul (me: accuse Dad of being in the 19th century, accuse Dad of treating me like a child; Dad: accuse me of being improper and not understanding social manners), Dad left a message with my secretary asking me to call him. So I did.
"What is it?" I snapped at him.
"Well. I've sent you another email. Read it!" he snapped back, and hung up. You can tell he's mad when he has to call you to tell you he's sent an email. All this palaver because I wanted him to meet M. - something that makes Dad probably nervous and prone to far-fetched conclusions that this is a pre-marital set-up. Which it is not.

Ah, well. I guess we've progressed a tiny bit since when I was a teenager when we had to argue about my curfew/sleepovers/wearing makeup/meeting boys. Or have we?

Oh. I have another email from him. Grrr...