"A Man's Worst Nightmare": Chronicles Of An Adult-Child Of Aging Titans (for adults who need to laugh to keep from crying over their parents)

A Man's Worst Nightmare (continued from "You're Costing Me Money")

"Owen, did you bring the food?"

"The food?"

"Yes.  The food for tonight "

"Uh-"

"Go back and get it."

"[Expletive, expletive, expletive].  Why didn't you say anything earlier?  [Expletive, expletive. expletive].  I'm not going back!  [Expletive], Gladys, you did this on purpose..."

We are waiting for the garage door to swing open and when it does, my dad juts through with only the merest space between the top of the car and the garage door. For some reason, both my mother and I compulsively hold our heads as he passes through, still swearing and refusing to turn back. But his words fade away as we swing onto the street which is covered in white fuzz and more is raining down as massive shopping bags of "toilet paper bombs" are deployed from windows above.

"Holy christmas," my dad turns to my mom but she turns to me instead to respond, still miffed with him from his earlier hijinks.

"Have the children gone mad?"

"This," I suddenly realize, " is why your neighbor looked like he'd just crawled out of a heating duct... he'd been toilet paper bombed."

"Yes, and never said a word to his elderly neighbors. Should've laughed even louder at him in the elevator."

"What should we do?" My dad is stopped in the ramp leading up to the street, still under the cover of the building.

"GO GET THE FOOD!"  My mother whirls around on him and breathes the words like a dragon.

She startles my dad so bad he follows her command in a near frantic, almost knee-jerk response that has us turned back the other direction so fast that there's like a lag time - and I have to blink really hard to focus - before my brain catches up to present time.

Just as my dad is tapping the garage door opener though, four police swoop past us on motorcycles and block the doors.

"At this time, there will be no entries or exits from the parking garage until further notice," one of them announces into a megaphone.

By now two other cars are lined up in back of us to get into the building and as we wait for them to back out, my parents have already resumed the argument in their minds so it takes me a beat to figure out what they're talking about.

"Nothing doing."  My dad is gripping the steering wheel rigidly and staring straight ahead.

"Yes.  There.  Is."

"Not doing it."

My mother breathes through her nose and fogs up the window on her side of the car - in nine thousand degree heat. Which means her breath is hotter than the air outside...

Slowly, my dad backs out and into a parking space on the street and there is silence.

A silence that builds and builds until it becomes this ominous cloud hanging over us. The kind of silence where you can tell the people are trying to choose their words carefully. Except not for the sake of prudence but for slice-and-dice-you-up, box-you-around-the-head-with-my-words type of effect. Before lightning strikes, I jump in the mix.

"I'll go get it," I say for the heck of it, not intending to go anywhere, but my dad opens his door and swings a leg out.

"No, Tucker, you stay in the car. And Gladys?"

My mother turns to him belligerently and he points a finger at her, standing in the door. Although it is very hard to take him seriously as he is already beginning to look like a zombie in a B movie, and keeps being overtaken by sneezing fits, and twitches every time debris falls in his eyes.

"This is the first and last stop. Once this car gets rolling, I'm not stopping again for one.  [Expletive].  Thing!"

He slams the car door for emphasis and then disappears into the white haze, sneezing and twitching and swatting his way through the debris.

And I watch as a small mirthless smile indents my mother's face on one side.

"Tucker, I think," she shifts so she's facing forward again in her seat, "I'm going to have some fun with your father..."

"No, no, Mom, I can't take anymore of you all's fun!"  I cry, fed up now.

"Oh yes. Revenge, my dear, is a dish best served cold..."

~Look for "Revenge Is A Dish Best Served Cold", another episode of Chronicles, next week~

#aging #comedy #funnystories

"You're Costing Me Money!": Chronicles Of An Adult-Child Of Aging Titans (for adults who need to laugh to keep from crying over their parents)

"YOU'RE COSTING ME MONEY!" (continued from last week's "Daddy's Girl")
 "I'm not even sure we should still be going to this thing after all this.  What time is it, Knotty?"
My mother asks this while we wait for the elevator to go down to the parking garage.
My dad look looks at his wristwatch and scowls.  "[expletive], [expletive] watch's stopped."
"Oh, we'll never get there in time. It hardly seems worth the drive."
"Gladys-"
My dad's chest rises as he gets ready to blow up but it's cut off by the arrival of one of their neighbors who appears to be covered from head to toe - even (ick) his face and hair and eyelashes - with shredded paper of some sort.
We stare in wonder. And somewhere within me I am gleeful that finally there is someone stranger then we are to focus on.
He is oblivious to our stares as he presses the button to go up and I try to imagine what happened. And even though my lips strain like a highstrung racehorse at its gates to push into the "W" shape, I manage to stay silent.  Because the only plausible answers would be something like:
"My dog and I had a teeth-wrestling fight over a Costco-sized packet of toilet tissue."
...or...
"It's a new fabric softener I'm trying. Oh, and I use it on my skin too."
... or maybe he sleeps inside his mattress rather then on top of it...
The elevator arrives while I'm still caught up in my musings but I jump on at the last moment, when I realize I'm about to be left alone with the man.
"Can anybody say Dustbuster?"  My dad asks as soon as the door closes and he and my mom laugh loudly.
"Shh-shh, he still can hear you with the doors closed," I try to whisper over them.
"Well, if he does hear us, he has only himself to blame, Tucker."
"Yeah, your mom's right.  What kind of man it goes around looking like that? When I was his age it was three-piece suits."
"Oh, my," my mother interrupts in a breathy tone, "there must be a happy, twenty-first century medium.  Somewhere."
"I don't care what you say, Gladys, I like my three-piece suits!"  My dad proclaims, holding the elevator door open for us when we get to the garage.
"I like them too, dad."
"Do not encourage your father!"  My mom scowls ferociously at me then turns to my dad waggling a finger.  "The next time I see a three-piece suit, it better be on a GQ model first!"
"Oh, get in the car, woman."
"Which reminds me. Your costing me money."
"Yeah, yeah," my dad grumbles, walking around the car to the driver's side.
"What money, Mom?"  I scoot forward in the backseat, interestedly, sensing juicy gossip.
"Car insurance."
"Car insurance?  But dad hasn't even had a fender bender in years."
"No, it's not that. That nice young man over at the car insurance agency told me he'd give me a hundred dollars a month in grocery store gift cards if we let them put a video camera in the car so they could study people's driving habits and patterns. But of course I couldn't let them do that - they'd have your father locked up, or thrown into an insane asylum, or get so discouraged they'd stop selling car insurance altogether..."
She trails off because now that I have finally caught my breath.  Finally.  I let out a hoop of laughter.  And then another.  And then I'm laughing so hard it's like my mouth is about to flip itself inside out and swallow my head.  A mainly silent torturous laugh.  One from which I imagine the vision for The Scream may have found its origin. I flop from one side of the car to the other nearly prostrate from the force of it, and beside myself trying to get it out of me.
Because I am besieged by all the flashbacks of my dad's tyrannical style of driving at once. And they are accompanied by sound effects, squealing brakes, screeching tires, the omnipresent expletives and those of other drivers, the growl of an accelerator revved to it's max.  
Even now, in the parking garage, I cling with both hands to the shoulder strap of the seatbelt as a car in the next aisle over and ours barrel down the short stretch of road and over two speed bumps to get to the exit lane first, reacting to some sort of intuitive homage to pugilism.
Although my dad stops short of actually burning rubber to turn into the exit lane in front of the other driver, then turns a contrary look on my mother before quaking with a deep belly laugh.
And when my mother finally turns to him her smile is gangster-like and unwavering even as she speaks.

"I hope you have nightmares every night for the rest of your life."

~Look for "A Man's Worst Nightmare", another episode of Chronicles, next week~

#comedy #aging #funnystuff #jokeoftheday