I don’t know who’s worse?

Is it my parents or Sports Illustrated/Best Buy? I’ll explain. For about eight weeks in a row now, Sports Illustrated has been sending their crappy-ass magazine to my parent’s house under my name. I remember when the first issue showed up and my Mom enquired about it and I simply shrugged and told her to trash it. Then I found out more were still coming. I really didn’t care, I just kept telling her to trash them. Though I like sports as much as the next guy, I am not a freak about it. I follow my home town professional teams, and that is about it. I may catch a game here and there on the television if time permits (or the game is on) but mostly I listen to baseball and football while I deliver pizzas. The rest of the time I read for school or pleasure. I don’t read magazines. I don’t care for magazines, especially ones dedicated to sports. Hell, half the damnable things are just advertisements anyway. I digress.
Well, I just kept having my mom trash the damn things and went on with my business. Though my mom told me to call them up and have them stop delivering the blasted magazine, and I figured, “What the hell? It’s not like they can charge me for them…” It may be beneficial to tell you all now that I do not own a credit card or debit card. I pay for everything with cash. I once had a debit card, and my spending went way too fast for me to balance what I spent. So I got rid of the damn things. I figured that there was no way that they could even try to swindle me out of money. But, boy was I wrong. Instead of me, I found out rudely yesterday morning, they went after my parents for the money. In fact, they didn’t even tell my parents about it, they simply charged their debit card and my parents found out about it yesterday when the received their bank draft in the mail.
So, onto me they attacked. “You owe me goddamned $24 bucks Michael!” said my father.
“Whoa—whoa there—what the hell are you talking about?” I rebuffed quizzically. After all, I owed them much more money than that for school. I knew it wasn’t about that, but just the same I was confused. “Why do I owe you more money?”
He filled me in on what he knew. He said that I he had been charged on his debit card for my stupid magazines that (I found out later that somehow they signed up at the counter when checking out at Best Buy, which is a electronic store, and then given S.I. my parents debit card number from a past purchase...). Yadda yadda yadda. I asked him how in the hell they got their number. He shrugged, then looked over at me giving me that eye of his. You know that father’s eye. The look that says you know what you did in its accusatory stare. “I don’t know Michael Patrick… why don’t you tell me?”
I wanted to scream in his face, “Oh god! Why don’t you just come out and say it dad? What? I stole your credit card and went out and signed up for something so completely retarded as this. Yes dad, your son’s a total retard. DOY!” But of course I did not. I simply huffed and glared. He got the message though. Somewhere in the distance a fight bell rang faintly, leaving a hollow vibration bouncing off the second floor walls. The fight ensued in short burps of irrational anger mustered up over the years. For most of the fight was not about the measily 24 bucks, but other things that irked my dad over the years. Mostly it was concerning religion. That was until my mother walked in. Oh great, I thought, now we’re gonna turn this into a tag team.
Individually, I could take on my folks in a verbal confrontation. I can maneuver and exploit their weaknesses with ease. But when they gang up (as parents should do, I suppose) their flanks are always covered. Even if my father becomes so beligerantly irrational, and the things he says no longer makes any sense, when my mother is there to back him up, there is no stopping them. The only move I have left, when that happens, is to resign and throw in the towel, lower my head in compliance, and walk away with my tail shoved firmly in my ass (or mouth… depends on which one is closer at the time).
So, my mother walks in and redirects the conversation to the stupid goddamn magazine. I withdrawal and walk away eventually when I had enough abuse. Today, they lord it above me again. Tomorrow, it will probably be gone, as I took care of the problem. All it took was a quick call to Sports Illustrated. They are going to credit their account with $24 now. I found out to that Best Buy had given my parents credit card number to S.I. and when I was in there buying a CD or something they had somehow achieved a copy of my address. It explained a lot. No one was really at fault but Best Buy. Though I thought it would be finished today, my mother still wouldn’t let it go. She insisted on bitching that it will probably take a few months to get to them. Thus, making it still my fault. I sighed and told her it was only twenty-four dollars. It’s not like a missing twenty-four dollars in their account wasn’t going to kill their yuppie asses. And now I assume another fight will break out soon. And this is why I ask myself, you guys, and the rest of the world. Who is worse, S.I. or my parents?