Yesterday, my wife and I and my Dad went to Costco. It didn't cost me too much. There were no gourmet cheeses that caught my Dad's eye, and he didn't spot anything else he wanted to drop into the cart without my seeing.
We were about done, my Dad was thirsty, so he and I headed toward the food court for a snack and a drink.
"You want a hot dog, Dad?" I asked him.
"What?"
"A hot dog?"
"Do I want a hot dog?"
"Yeah."
"I told you, I'm thirsty."
"I know you're thirsty, Dad, but would you like something to eat, too?"
He let me know in no uncertain terms that he was thirsty, only thirsty, and if he was hungry, he would have let me known in even
more uncertain terms.
I stand in line, wait for my turn to order, and come back with a diet cola for him and a coffee ice cream drink for myself. And a hot dog.
My Dad looks at it.
"Say, that hot dog looks pretty good," he tells me.
It does look pretty good, because I've slathered it messily with mustard, catsup, and relish. No onions. I have hopes for later, if you get my drift.
This always happens, so I don't know why I didn't just get TWO hot dogs to begin with.
"You want some, Dad?"
"What? Me? No," he said, not taking his eyes off the dog. "I told you, I'm full."
"Are you sure, Dad? I'm not that hungry. I probably won't even finish it."
"Well... if you're not gonna finish it," he said, salivating like Pavlov's Dad. "Maybe you can cut me a little piece."
I cut the hot dog in half, and got no argument from my father. To tell the truth, I was
starving, but not enough to get back in the long line to buy another dog. Besides, my Dad wouldn't finish a full dog.
I guess he did me a favor. I didn't need the extra calories.
We sat next to the traffic aisle on one of the outside tables. There was an elderly man sitting next to us. Even more elderly than my Dad, at least by the look of him. He had the comb-over, the sickly-looking skin that some elderly white men get, and a good shiner on the left side of his face. He must be happily married.
I sat there, trying not to look at the old guy, which wasn't hard to do, since the warmer weather means the female shoppers are wearing tighter, skimpier clothing. My Dad pretends not to notice, but I can see his eyes darting side to side checking out the eye candy. And then I hear the old guy whisper, "Me, oh my," as an especially good-looking girl walks by in tight jean shorts. Kim Kardashian's butt could easily hide behind that girl's butt, and she'd still have room left over for Jennifer Lopez's butt. My Dad doesn't even pretend to be discreet with that one.
"Oo-wee," he says.
After that, it's like the dueling banjo scene from the movie
Deliverance. The old man goes, "Me, oh my," as another pretty girl pushes her cart past us. My Dad goes, "Oo-wee," as a pretty girl strolls by with her cart.
"Me, oh my," the old man says.
"Oo-wee," my Dad answers.
"Me, oh my."
"Oo-wee."
I think they were encouraging each other.
Hey,
I thought it was funny, two old guys in their nineties, still enjoying the sight of a good-looking female. It gives me hope for the future.
My future.
When my wife's about done at the check-out, I go up to push the cart for her, and as we walk past the old horn-dag, I tell her, "Check out the old guy that was sitting next to us."
After she does, I tell her what he was doing, carefully leaving out the part with my Dad doing the same thing.
"That's sick," she tells me. "That's probably how he got his black eye."
Raising My Father
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