This being an almost-Fourth of July Weekend, my wife had the good sense yesterday to send me to Wal-Mart to buy the few last-minute items we needed to make our cookout for that afternoon a success. I say she had the good sense, because she knew something I didn't... Wal-Mart was going to be packed!
"Why don't you take your Dad?" she asked me.
"What?"
"Why don't you take your Dad?"
Now I'm starting to understand why "What?" is my dad's favorite question. It's fun to say.
I looked over to my favorite chair in the great room. The one with the perfect view of the big-screen TV. The one that was being occupied by my Dad. He was sitting there, but the TV was off. He does that sometimes.
"What?" I asked my wife again.
She wasn't buying it.
"Just ask your Dad," she told me.
Well, to be honest, it was more of an order than it was a "told," and if there's one thing I don't like, it's being "ordered" to do anything. I like being asked. Nicely. That way I can pretend it's my idea. Now, I could have been offended at being ordered around by my wife, but she would have just gotten mad and I would have still ended up taking my Dad with me, so I cut out all that "being offended" stuff.
"Dad."
"What?"
"Dad!"
"What?"
"Do you want to come with me to Wal-Mart?"
"Where?"
"To Wal-Mart."
"Do I want to go?"
"Yeah."
"Where?"
"To Wal-Mart."
"To Wal-Mart?"
"Yeah."
"I don't know, I'm watching TV."
He looks at the TV. It's still off.
"I guess I'll go," he tells me.
I feel like I'm in the middle of a bad sitcom.
We get in the car, and, as we're driving down the road, I start slowing down for a yellow light. At the corner to my right is a convenience store. A guy gets out of his car at the gas pumps, and I don't believe what I see.
I don't know if it's because of this being on or around Gay Pride Week, but the guy's wearing a black or dark-blue see-through mesh t-shirt and dark-blue swim trunks. Not Speedos, but close. He's also wearing white athletic shoes with white socks. Somehow, those seem oddest of all. He's lean, fit, but not really muscular. He looks like a dork.
"Dad," I say, coming to a complete stop, as the light turns red.
"What?"
"Look at that guy," I tell him, nodding in the direction of the convenience store's gas pumps. I don't know if my Dad understands me or not, but he looks in the right direction. I see his eyes bulge out a bit at what he sees.
"Is that guy..." my Dad says slowly, trying to find the right words, "...getting gas?"
You have to understand, my Dad doesn't like it when he sees "these young kids" walking around with their pants below their butts, and he especially doesn't like it when he sees grown men wandering around in public wearing pajama bottoms for pants, so what he thought about this old-enough-to-know-better guy wearing a bathing suit to get gas wasn't too hard to figure out.
I remember taking my Dad for a haircut once. We were sitting there, waiting our turn, when in walked a guy in his thirties wearing a black leather jacket, black Ray Ban Wayfarer sunglasses, black Nikes... and pajama bottoms! You could tell he thought he looked cool by the way he walked in talking on his cellphone, but, in reality, those pajama bottoms made him look like a dork.
"He's a grown man," my Dad leaned over and whispered to me. "Why's he wearing pajama bottoms?"
To be truthful, I had no idea. The best answer I could come up with was that he must not have known how stupid he looked. Which was the exact same thought I had when I saw Mr. Bathing Suit In Public Guy.
My Dad leaned over. He whispered, even though there was no reason to.
"He's a grown man. Why's he wearing Speedos?"
Raising My Father
RaisingMyFather.blogspot.com
jimduchene.blogspot.com Fifty Shades of Funny
@JimDuchene
@JimDuchene
No comments:
Post a Comment