"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.""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.
~Look for "A Man's Worst Nightmare", another episode of Chronicles, next week~
#comedy #aging #funnystuff #jokeoftheday
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