Do You Know What's Worse?

My Dad's dog needed a check-up and his shots. My Dad knows it, but he acts like he doesn't understand when I tell him. And then tell him again. And again. 

     "Dad," I'll tell him, "we need to take your dog for his shots."

     "Oh, I'm fine," he'll tell me, and nervously change the channel on the television set.

     "Dad," my wife will say, "why don't we take your dog to get his shots today?"

     "No, thanks," he'll say. "I'm not hungry."

     Before you tell me to leave the poor old guy alone, this is the same poor old guy who studies his monthly bank statements for hours, and then, if he doesn't like what he sees, he'll have us take him to the bank so he can argue with somebody for hours more. I swear, when the bank sees him coming, they probably put the janitor in a business suit, and have him handle all of Dad's questions and complaints.

     "Answer him in Spanish. Maybe he'll leave sooner."

     But he doesn't. My Dad isn't interested in any kind of a mutual exchange of words, he's only interested in talking and having somebody listen. Like when he goes to the doctor's office. When he's done or tired or ready for his nap, he'll finally stop and we'll bring him home.

     So guess who ends up taking his dog to the vet? That's right, my wife. Just kidding, I do. My wife does enough when it comes to putting up with my Dad's shenanigans.

     I take his dog to the vet, have an adult conversation that's not about baseball, and I pay for the dog's shots and check-up besides. Believe me, I checked my wallet, but there was none of my Dad's money inside.

     When we get back, my Dad tells me, "Oh, I see you're back."

     "Yeah," I tell him, "we just got back from the vet's."

     "You just got back from the vet?"

     "Yeah, I took your dog. He's over-weight, but healthy. I had him get all his shots."

     "He had to get his shots?"

     "Yes."

     "Who had to get his shots?"

     "Your dog. Your dog had to get his shots."

     "Your dog had to get his shots?"

     "No, your dog."

     "Your dog?"

     "No, your dog. Your dog had to get his shots."

     "That's what I'm saying, your dog."

     My Dad's eyes are starting to bulge the way they do when he's confused or gearing up for a fight. A vein on his neck is starting to make its presence known. He's ready for a tussle. I thought to myself, was it worth trying to straighten out? Was it worth the aggravation? The high blood pressure? Another dizzy spell?

     "That's right, Dad," I said, making my decision. "That's right."

     I couldn't prove it in a court of law, but I think I saw him giving me a yeah,-buddy,-that's-what-I-thought grin. Maybe it was just gas.

     "That's good," my Dad said, turning his attention back to the baseball game on TV. "That's good."

     I checked my wallet. There was still none of my Dad's money in it.

     I better live long enough to spend some of my inheritance.

     I know, I know. I complain and I complain, but do you know what's worse than your 90-something year-old father moving in with you? Your 70-something year-old mother-in-law moving in.
     Oh, I'm not talking about me. I'm talking about a buddy of mine. I'll call him "Maloney," since that's his name. Maloney and I were in the war together.
     "And which war was that?" my wife once asked me.
     "The big one," I answered.
     "World War Two?" she teased.
     Silly girl. That was my Dad's war. The one I was in was way worse that that one.
     "The war between the sexes," I told her. "I lost."
     Ouch! For the weaker sex, she sure can hit hard.
     Of course I was referencing the time when I was single and Maloney was single and we were both ignorantly happy in our singleness. If I was still single and dating, would I have taken in my Dad to live with me? Did I need a loving wife to gently--and sometimes not-so-gently--nudge me in the right direction? Maybe. Maybe not. Truth is, I really don't know.
     I mean, is homelessness really such a bad thing? Once you get used to eating out of restaurant trash bins, the rest is easy. You can travel. You have no responsibilities. As long as you aren't interested in a little thing called lack-of-hygiene, you can even date. I once saw a homeless couple. They seemed happy.
     "Maybe I can start a blog, like you," Maloney told me.
     "You wouldn't like it," I told him. Who needs the competition?
     I think Maloney got married because I got married. Which is to say that if he lives to be a hundred, he stayed single for the first half of his life, and then, in a moment of weakness, he jumped the broom.
     Myself, I got married young. Then I got divorced young. Then I got married again, reasonably young. But this time I did it right. And it was this blissful second marriage that Maloney, with his horse-blinders firmly on, saw. Or maybe he was looking through beer-goggles. Whatever it was that he was looking through, it didn't let him see all the hard work that marriage is. All he saw was the frosting, not the cake.
     I think he thought to himself, "What am I doing with my life? I've got no wife. I've got no family. My parents think I'm gay."
     Years ago, when he first started making noises about getting married, I told him, "All you need is a dog and a maid. A dog for affection, and a maid to cook and clean for you. That way, you can have sex with the maid, and still date."
     He got married instead.
 
 

Raising My Father

RaisingMyFather.blogspot.com

jimduchene.blogspot.com  Fifty Shades of Funny

@JimDuchene

   

I Won't Cry... Much

Have you ever heard the old Henny Youngman joke about a man who goes to the doctor? It goes like this:
 

Man:  Doc, it hurts when I do this.

Doctor:  Then don't do that.
 

     Well, for awhile now I've been having dizzy spells when I stand up. I'll be sitting somewhere, feeling good, and the next moment I'll get up and feel dizzy. I have to steady myself for a few seconds before it goes away.
     Like most guys, I figured if I waited long enough it would go away. When it didn't go away, I started to think all kinds of things that might be wrong with me.
     I just finished watching Breaking Bad, and I thought about Walter White, the chemistry teacher turned crystal meth cook, who was dying of lung cancer (Did I spoil anything? Oops!). Let's see, he's got a cough, and I've got a cough. He got dizzy and fainted in the car wash he worked at, and I've gotten dizzy while waiting for my car to be detailed at a car wash. He's got lung cancer, so maybe...
     Nah, it couldn't be lung cancer.
     For one thing, it doesn't run in the family, and, secondly, I've never smoked a day in my life. Although, when you think about it, you could say that I smoked for the first 18 years of my life. You could say that because my Dad smoked, and  he thought nothing about holding his infant son in the crook of one arm, while holding a cigarette in the hand of his other. And blowing smoke out of the corner of his mouth, besides.
     To be fair to my Dad, this was back in the days when doctors used to advertise for the cigarette companies, saying that smoking was good for you. It relaxed you. Made you calm. Woody Allen made fun of it years later in his movie Sleepers, where he played Miles Monroe, a part owner of The "Happy Carrot" Health-Food Store, who goes into the hospital for a routine exploration of a minor peptic ulcer, and wakes up 200 years later.
     A doctor is giving him a physical after he's woken up, and offers him a cigarette. Allen refuses, because tobacco causes cancer. The doctor just laughs this off.
     "Cancer? Nah," he says. "Cigarettes are one of the healthiest things for your body."
     Or something like that.
     I remember, as a kid, telling myself that I'd never date a girl who smoked. However, when my hormones kicked in, and dating girls went from being a theory to actually being a reality, I rethought my position. I remember thinking, "Why limit my dating potential?"
     If I limited myself to only the girls who didn't smoke, I'd be eliminating an important group of girls, namely the easy ones. I don't know if it's true across the board or not, but girls I dated who smoked never seemed too difficult a challenge, if you get my drift.  Same with drinking. When I was younger, I used to joke to my friends, "Thank God for alcohol, otherwise I wouldn't get lucky half as often as I do."
     But I digress...
     At any rate, I decided it couldn't be lung cancer. 
     Maybe  a brain tumor?  A blood clot? Do I have an aneurysm waiting inside my head like a ticking time bomb? I have a brother-in-law who's on his second stroke. The first stroke paralysed half his face. When he was a little boy I guess he didn't listen to his mother when she told him, "Be careful, or your face will freeze that way."
     When we went to visit him, I remember leaning over and whispering to my wife, "I thought half his face was frozen. He looks the same to me."
     She turned so that my sister couldn't see, and gave me the ugliest look I had ever seen. I wanted to tell her, "Careful, or your face will freeze that way," but I knew I couldn't say it out loud without laughing, so I kept it inside of me. I'd tell her later. When she wasn't giving me such a dirty look. 
     He eventually regained the full use of his face. That is, until his second stroke. Now he's in the same boat as before.
     "You know," I whispered to my wife. "I actually think he looks better. Ow!"
     That came from a quick elbow to my ribs. 
     That look. That look.
     But I'm digressing again...
     I need reading glasses. My hearing's going bad. I feel like I'm losing more brain cells than the average bear. I have a bum ticker that's not pumping enough blood to my brain, and , when my wife is "in the mood," it causes a quarter of that blood to be redirected to another part of my body. Most men would die if they lost that much blood. Well, anyway...
     After several spells, and a few that caused me to sit back down before I fell on my head, I made an appointment to see my doctor.
     At his office, they gave me the usual physical. They tested all my vital organs (and not in the fun way), and checked my vision and hearing. I peed in a plastic cup, and they sent me out for some blood work. Everything came out okay. I would say the only glitch was that I had aged ten years in only one.
     How? You ask.
     Well, on the last physical I had, which was just a year ago, the doctor told me that I was as healthy as a man a decade younger. This time, the doctor told me that I was healthy for a man my age. You do the math.
     After all the tests I had to make an appointment to see my doctor. It's funny, when you're making an appointment, they'll give you one that's weeks--maybe months--in the future, and then when you finally see the doctor he'll tell you, "Why didn't you see me sooner?"
     Anyway, at my appointment, the doctor was reviewing the results of all my test.
     "Looks good, looks good, looks good," he nodded, nodded, nodded, and then looked up. "Remind me why you're here again?"
     "Well, doc," I started, maybe a bit too familiar for my own good. "When I sit for a long time, and then get up suddenly, I get dizzy. Sometimes I have to steady myself so I don't fall down."
     The doctor took this in. I wondered if I had given him enough information, but what else I could tell him? Maybe I could get up and mime what happens. Maybe I would have, but more than I hate mimes, I hate looking foolish.
     He looked at me with that serious look that all doctors and prosecutors have.  Meanwhile, I'm stressing out that perhaps, like Walter White, I might only have a short time to live.
     I'm planning, Just how DO you make crystal meth? I'm wondering, Will Sancho be the one to spend the inheritance I won't live to see? I'm thinking, Ok, doc, I can take it. Give it to me straight. I won't cry.
     Much.
     The doctor gets up to leave--appointment over--and reaches for the door. As he opens it, he tells me "There's nothing wrong with you. Just don't get up so fast."
     And he leaves. My money walking out the door right behind him.
     Meanwhile, I'm still alive.
     I guess he was right.
 
 

Raising My Father

RaisingMyFather.blogspot.com

jimduchene.blogspot.com  Fifty Shades of Funny

@JimDuchene
 

The More Things Change

As I sit here watching Miley Cyrus host Saturday Night Live I can't help but wonder what all the fuss is about. That Miley is the ugliest little boy I've ever seen. Just kidding. I know Cyrus is a girl.
     Just like Justin Bieber.
     Am I showing my age? Sometimes I feel like those parents from the 50's calling rock & roll the devil's music or those parents from the 60's yelling at hippies to "get a haircut!" But one thing I can count on not to change is my Dad. The older he gets, the more he becomes a caricature of himself (which is something I'm sure my children think about me). What am I talking about?

     My Dad's new TV has logged in less then 10 minutes since I paid for it, and those were the 10 minutes my wife spent loading the channels after I had hooked it up. When I complain to her about how I have to watch a 18 inch TV with no convertor, she always reminds me, "You'll get it soon enough." Meaning my Dad's TV set. Meaning, when he passes away. I don't think so. Like Michael Corleone said about Hyman Roth when he was playing The Godfather Part, Too: "He's been dying from the same heart attack for 20 years."

     I think my father is waiting for me to go first.

     I gave my Dad's old TV to my daughter, who needed one. Why didn't I keep it for myself, since all I do is complain about my old 18 incher? Well, she's my daughter and she needed one. If you're a parent, you'll understand. If you're not, then you're probably not reading this.

     She was very happy with it and kept thanking me for it. I told her, "That's an $800 TV I just gave you," which was what I had to pay for my dad's new, terminally unwatched one. Speaking of my Dad, I'm still waiting for a thank you from him.

     Waiting for a thank you from my Dad is what I do best.

     Meanwhile, every time I walk into the great room who do I find sitting in his--my--favorite chair watching baseball? Yep, my Dad. Sometimes he's not even watching it. He'll be wherever he'll be and the great room will be empty. The TV will be on, as well as every single light on the path he has to walk between his father-in-law house and the great room.

     Dad has a TV larger than the one I'm usually stuck watching. Do I sound like I'm complaining again? That's because I am.

     Today at 1400 hours (which is 2 in the afternoon to you non-military types), Dad went on his walk. I warned him that it was hot. My wife warned him that it was hot. His dog didn't even want to go. 

     "It feels cool to me," he said, as he stubbornly walked out the door. 

     When he returned, I asked him "How was it?"

     I had to laugh at his response.

     "Man, oh man. It was hot," he said, shaking his head. He then took off the old, grey sweater he likes to wear on his walks. "Very hot."

     If he was one of my kids, I would have laughed and answered, "I told you it was hot." It didn't help that he was dressed as if he was an extra in the movie Ice Station Zebra.

     Later that day, I'm polishing the wood floors leading from the hall way to the kitchen to the great room. Dad is in his--my--favorite chair watching TV. His new TV--the one that cost me 800 bucks--sits in his room. Lonely.

     I have no choice, I have to polish the floor but I don't want to do it in a rude way. So I start in the hall way and slowly make my way to the great room. I'm trying to give him plenty of warning.

     Here I come, Dad. You might want to make some other arrangements in your baseball-watching routine. 

     I know he can hear me, but he can't see me. After a long 30 minutes, he finally gets up and goes to his room.

     Leaving the TV and all the lights on, on his way out.

     Click, click, click!

     Smack, smack, smack!

 

 

Raising My Father

RaisingMyFather.blogspot.com

jimduchene.blogspot.com  Fifty Shades of Funny

@JimDuchene