"Somebody's gone into my room," he'll say. "I can tell."
"Nobody's gone into your room, Dad," I'll say.
"I can tell."
"How can you tell?"
"I just can," he'll say, and then he'll look me right in the eye. "I don't know who, but somebody's been in my room. And they took my keys."
I don't know why he looks at me when he says that. Does he think it's me who sneaks into his room for no good reason to steal his keys for no good reason? I don't know why he would.
My Dad is only two places at any given time: he's in his room, or he's in the great room watching TV. He can pretty much see anybody who would leave our house and go into his. Besides which, I don't know why the fact that he (or my wife) always seems to find his keys (usually in his pants) doesn't make his first response be that his keys are just misplaced, not stolen.
He's even blamed his 2 year-old great-grandson. He knows--KNOWS, I tell you--that the baby takes his keys.
"He must have snuck into my room while I was watching the baseball game," he'll say. "Why don't you guys watch him better?"
I bristle at those kind of comments. First off, the baby is never out of anyone's sight, and secondly, the baby isn't allowed in my Dad's room. Besides which, the logistics of the baby sneaking out of our house, sneaking into Dad's guest house, stealing the key, and then successfully making his escape... well, let's just say I'd sooner believe my Dad's a back-up dancer for Lady Gaga.
But the main reason it's not possible that the baby takes his keys is that my Dad uses his keys in the morning when he goes on his walks, and the baby is usually off stealing cars when my Dad discovers his keys are missing.
My Dad will go on about it so much that I'll get to the point of defending the poor baby's honesty, but my wife will put a subtle hand on my knee, and I'll leave it at that. There's no reason to reason with him. He'll think his keys have been stolen, until he finds them. And then he'll shake his head, chuckle, and say, "Er... ahhh... they were in my pants after all."
That happens so often I don't know why his pants aren't the first place he looks.
Right now I'm watching the Olympics on TV. Admiring the skimpy uniforms of the female athletes.
"Yes, dear," I'll agree with my wife, and pretend to be disgusted. "Those costumes are way too skimpy for a world-wide audience."
I'm careful not to drool when I say this.
Basically, I'm just minding my own business when I notice my Dad coming into the kitchen. He's just left his room, and he's mumbling something about his keys.
He laughs, looks down, and shakes his head.
"That little guy," he chuckles, and makes his smacking noise. Smack, smack, smack! "That little guy took the keys."
"What, Dad?" I ask him, although I know better. I try to keep one eye on the TV set.
"What?"
"What did you say?"
"What did I say?"
"What did you say about the keys?"
"What did I say about the keys?"
"You were saying something about your keys."
"Oh, yeah," smack! "That little guy, he... he... ahhh, I had the keys when he grabbed them from me."
"The baby took your keys?"
"He was so fast, so fast."
"The baby took your keys?" I ask him again. It was my turn to repeat myself.
"Yeah, that little guy grabbed the keys and took off running. He was so fast, and now he lost them." Smack, smack, smack!
"The baby's not even here. How could he take the key from you?"
"I don't mean now, I mean earlier."
"Why didn't you tell us then?"
"What?"
"Why didn't you tell us then? When he took your keys?"
"What?"
I had to change direction.
"How could the baby take the keys from you?" I asked my Dad. I almost laughed at the image of a 2 year-old baby snatching the keys out of my Dad's hand, and then giving him a noogie for good measure.
"What?"
"How could the baby take the keys from you?" I ask him again. "What was he even doing in your room?"
"I don't know how he took the keys from me, he just did. He was so fast."
"Well, what was he doing in your room?"
"I don't know what he was doing in my room, he just was. And now there's no idea what he did with them. He's lost them."
It's not that I don't believe my Dad when he says a 2 year-old was able to snatch something out of his hand, it's just that I don't believe a 2 year-old could snatch something out of man's hand, even if that man is 93 years-old. I don't know what really happened, but I find that particular scenario pretty farfetched.
I was going to ask him that if the baby took the keys from him, why didn't he just take them right back. Or how the baby was able to get away. Or how the baby was able to get into his room in the first place. Or why didn't he just tell us about it when it happened. Or... or... or...
Please, if the baby had taken my Dad's keys we would have heard about it. My Dad gets a little nervous around the baby. As soon as the baby gets close to him, we hear about it. There's probably a dozen reasons why my Dad gets nervous. None of which I'll bore you with right now. What it comes down to is this:
The poor baby is too young to defend himself, and my Dad is too old to be interrogated.
RaisingDad
RaisingMyFather.BlogSpot.com
JimDuchene.BlogSpot.com American Chimpanzee
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