For Sale!

My Dad LOVES going shopping.

     Well, let me rephrase that: My Dad loves going shopping to COSTCO.

     Well, that's not quite right, either: My Dad loves going shopping to Costco... with my wife. My Dad loves going shopping to Costco with my wife because she doesn't have the heart to tell him no.
     That nasty bit of parent-parenting, she leaves for me.

     Many a time we've been at Costco, he'll pick up an item, look at it, look at me, and put it back down. With my wife, he'll pick up an item like gourmet cheeses (which his digestive system doesn't need, if you've read my last two stories), and just plop them into the grocery cart, expecting the Wallet Fairy to pay for it, I guess. My wife won't say a thing.

     If I happen to catch him doing this, sometimes I'll just take the item out when he's not looking, put it back, and when we're back home, if he notices that his item didn't make the trip home, he won't say a thing and I won't say a thing.

     Sometimes, when I see him looking at something, I'll try to talk him out of it.

     Once, when I saw him pick up some Rogaine, I asked him, "Thinking about getting some, Dad?"

     "Aw, no, no," he said, but he didn't put it down. Instead, I saw his beady little eyes quickly scan around for my wife and/or her cart.

     "I hear it makes your penis shrink," I told him. I wasn't saying it was true, I'm just saying that's what I heard. Anything that makes your hair grow, at the expense of the size of your tallywhacker, kind of defeats the purpose, don't you think? If you want a full head of hair to look attractive, but it affects just what it is you want to be attractive for, then what's the point? Anyway...

     My Dad quickly put the Rogaine back. And briskly rubbed his hands together for good measure, trying to get any Rogaine residue off of his hands.

     You might think that's mean, and, if it were somebody else I was hearing this about, I might, too. But my pantry and my refrigerator is only so big. How many gourmet cheeses can it hold, before there's no room for the necessities like beer and chips?

     But I don't always go with my wife to Costco, so that's how we end up with Grecian Formula or Testosterone Boosters. My Dad's 94-years-old. My Mom's been dead for quite a few years now. I've never--NEVER--seen him show any interest in another woman. Oh, sure, he likes to look at the eye candy (we all do), but if it came down to a choice between him watching baseball at home or going out on a date... he'd choose the baseball. And farting.

     So why's he so interested in the color of his hair or the level of his testostoroni--the real San Franciscan treat--? And just what do I do with all that junk he has us buy that he never uses?

     I'm glad you asked, my friend. Close your judgemental door, and open your wallets, because I have all those items...

 
FOR SALE

  

1) Pair of sweats.

 
    Never worn. Size small. He refuses to wear them because my wife intitially bought them for herself, gave them to my Dad when he saw and liked them, but then made the mistake of telling him they were for her. I guess he's afraid that wearing them would lower his testosterone levels even further.

 

2) A five pound pumpkin pie.

 
     It's from Costco, so you know it's good, but there's just so much of it. My Dad insisted we buy it for the holidays, but then had no interest in eating any of it once my money had been spent.

 

3) 118 Ice cream creme puffs.

 
     The box came with 120 crème puff balls. My Dad said he LOVES crème puff balls, "I can eat the whole box," he insisted, so my wife bought them for him. He ate TWO. They've been in my freezer ever since.

 

4) Pair of uni-sex sweat suit.

 
     They've been worn a few times in Yosemite. These he's stopped wearing because he he's not sure what the term "uni-sex" means. My wife's tried explaining it to him, but he refuses to understand. Or pretends not to. Either way, he won't wear them.

 

5) New picture frame with a picture of his grand-daughter.

 
     It was a Christmas present from his other son, but since my brother's never invited my Dad over his home for a few days to visit, I don't think my Dad knows who the young white female is.

 

6) Pair of shoe laces. Cost $9.00. Will sell for $2.00.

 
     When my kids were kids, their shoelaces were ALWAYS coming untied. I don't know what it is about toddlers and their shoelaces, they never stay tied. My Dad is like a 94-year-old toddler.
 

7) TV. Like new!

 
     This one cost me too much money for me to make a joke about.

 

8) New Running shoes.

 
     No matter what we buy my Dad, they always hurt his feet. My oldest daughter put it best: "It's not the shoes, it's his feet. He has 94-year-old feet."

 

9) Gourmet cheese.

 

     It's from Costco, so you know it's good. It cost $15 for 10 milligrams. I'll sell it to you for $5. Wait... it's been in my refrigerator for awhile. On second thought, I'll pay you $5 to take it away.

     Along with all the other crap we've bought him. From Costco...

     ...so you know it's good.

 

 

Raising My Father

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@JimDuchene
 

 

Hoof Hearted, Ice Melted

Early this morning my grandson and I are sitting on the floor of the great room and playing poker... using his rules.
     He's only four, but he likes to stacks the cards in his favor.
     "Hey," I'll tell him, "that's cheating."
     "I like to win," he'll tell me back with the blunt logic of a four-year-old. He and Mr. Spock have a lot in common.
     My Dad is sitting in his--my-- favorite chair. Cartoons are on the TV I never get to watch and things are running smoothly. That is, until I hear him say, "I better get up."

     No sooner does my Dad get up than--man-oh-man--the smell hit my nose. No, smell's not the right word because everything has a smell... the stink, stank, stunk hit my nose. It was a horrible odor. My eyes started to water, and we weren't even sitting that close. My Dad's little dog, who was sitting next to him, even jumped off the chair and ran off to replace the stench in his nostrils by sniffing our other dog's hind end.
     I look at my grandson. He's wobbling back and forth, on the verge of passing out. Myself, I'm feeling kind of woozy. Thank God I'm sitting on the floor. It's a shorter trip for my head to the hard oak tiles should the lack of oxygen to my brain short-circuit my wiring. Meanwhile, my Dad just stands by the chair with a What the heck was THAT! look on his face. His eyes are bulging out and he's mumbling something I don't understand in my woozy condition.
     His gas was too much even for him. I keep my eye on him to make sure he's not on his way to visit my mother in that great baseball stadium in the sky. I want to be sure riguermortus hasn't set in as he was standing there.

     It was time to walk away. Go somewhere, anywhere. I pull my Grandson into my arms, and stand up from my sitting position on the floor. Not an easy thing to do at my age, but when your life's at stake, you'll be surprised what you can do. Like that story of a lady picking up one side of a car, because her toddler was trapped underneath.

     This isn't the first time my Dad hasn't been able to stand his own stench. There have been many, many times when I have seen him standing just outside the bathroom and swinging the door back and forth. He'll do this for several minutes.  Just swinging it back and forth, back and forth, back and forth... for five, ten minutes.
     Meanwhile, I'm thinking as I watch him, Why doesn't he just close the door to the bathroom?
     The bathroom has a fan, he can turn that on. The bathroom also has a window, he can open that. Just shut the door and let the smell leak out.

      There's never been a time when I've used the bathroom or let one slip, that me or my dogs can't hang in there. When I'm done, I close the door and walk away.
     My wife has occasionally made the mistake of going into the bathroom after I've used it. All this time, and she hasn't learned to avoid the bathroom if I shut the door behind me when I leave?
     She'll immediately walk right out.
     "Jeez Louise," she's said. "It smells like the devil's possessed your digestive system." Have I ever mentioned how funny my wife can be?  "I'm going to have to call a priest to exorcise your bowels."
     Yeah... she's funny.
    

   

Raising My Father

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@JimDuchene

  

Toot!

I'm sitting at the kitchen counter, reading the morning newspaper and enjoying a nice, hot cup of coffee. Gourmet coffee. Not that I'm being snooty, but being a man of few bad habits--you won't find me making a road trip to the Colorado Rocky Mountain high--I figure I can splurge on gourmet coffee.
     This morning, the coffee's especially good. I added a cinnamon stick to the coffee grounds before I brewed it. Cinnamon is good for diabetes. It helps regulate your blood sugar. Personally, I don't have diabetes, but I thought you might like to know.
     In the mornings, while I'm savoring my brew, I also like to leisurely read the newspaper. But what I like doesn't seem to matter much these days. You see, when my Dad gets up and makes his way from his house into my house, he, too, likes to leisurely read the morning paper. If he can't, because--oh, say--his son happens to be enjoying it at that moment, he gets antsy. He starts exhaling loudly, making sure I can hear him, and he starts saying, "Oh, my. Oh, my. Oh, my."
     He walks around, looking here and there for nothing in particular, and occasionally he'll glance in my direction to see if I'm still reading the paper.
     Yep, I am.
     Normally, when he walks into our house, he'll just walk into the great room and plop himself into his--my--favorite chair and wait for my wife to turn on the TV for him. But when he's waiting for the newspaper, he can't sit. He shuffles this way and that, walks back and forth, and goes here and there.
     Most days, I just put the newspaper back together (In order. It has to be in order.) and leave it on the counter for him. Then I go lift weights. I'd rather read the paper, but life, as usual, always has other plans for me.
     Oh, sure, I could be a jerk and finish reading the newspaper, but that would mean that I'd have to finish reading it while my Dad's giving me the stink eye with his eyes all bugging out.
     He won't ask for it, and he won't just reach over and grab the sections I'm done with--I'm usually done with the front page and the sports section by this time. No, he wants the whole thing.
     Hey, speak of the devil. Here he comes now. He walks pass me and greets me in his own inimitable way.
     Toot!
     You'd think in a house this big he could find another place to toot.
 
 

RaisingMyFather

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You Think You've Got Problems? (Part Two)

     "You think you've got problems?" Maloney asked me, although it really wasn't a question he expected an answer to. It was the kind of question that told you to sit back and listen. (And, by the way, I'm paraphrasing what he said here.) "Saturday morning my wife has to pick up her mother at 6:30 in the morning from a sleep study to determine if she snores or not. Hey, I don't need to give her a sleep study to tell her that. She snores! I don't hear her myself, but my little girl is always telling me, 'Daddy, Grandma keeps waking me up.'

     "So she picks her up, they go to Valentine's bakery to buy some menudo for breakfast, and when they get home, my wife has to go right back out to take Boswell--our 23-year-old! son--to one of those 24-hour medical clinics. He had been sick the day before, coughing all over everybody, but it didn't occur to him to go to the clinic after he got off work. No, he thought he'd bring it home for the rest of us to enjoy. Anyway, about a half hour after they left, my little girl got up. She's twelve. We had made plans the night before to go for an early morning walk, but the morning was too cold, too wet, and too windy. The unholy trinity of morning walks. For me, at least. So we sat on the couch in the living room, she put her feet up on my lap so I could massage them, and we just talked.

     " 'Are you hungry?' I asked her.

     " 'No,' she told me.

     "Her Grandma, meanwhile, stayed in her room, probably taking a nap after all that hard sleep-studying.

     "The menudo, it stayed on the stove. I wasn't hungry either.

     "About an hour and a half after that, my wife and Boswell come home. It's a sinus infection. I keep telling him to wash his hands before he picks his nose, but he doesn't listen.

     "Well, bonding time with my daughter is over. She gets up and goes to her room. I get up and go take a shower. A few minutes after that, my wife walks in, a bit ticked off.

     " 'Didn't you ask my mom if she wanted breakfast?'

     "Now, remember, her mother was with my wife when my wife bought the menudo. It was on the stove. It was ready to be served for anybody willing to serve themselves.

     " 'What?' I asked my wife.

     "I wasn't sure I had heard her correctly. Maybe I had water in my ears.

     " 'I said, didn't you ask my mom if she wanted breakfast?

     "It didn't even take me a second to reply.

     " 'Your mother is a grown woman. She's taken care of herself for 70 years. She can serve herself menudo if she's hungry.'

     "All of a sudden, I've become her mother's morning butler? 

     " 'No, she won't,' my wife told me. 'She's not like that. She doesn't feel comfortable yet.'

     "She sure was comfortable eating that pastry of mine a few weeks back.

     " 'If I'm hungry, I eat,' I told her. 'I expect the same of everybody else.'

     " 'But my mother won't serve herself,' she tried to tell me.

     " 'Then she's not hungry enough,' I told her back. 'You know, when I get home from work and you're out for some reason, your mother has no problem getting herself something to eat. Maybe if you wouldn't keep serving her like you're her servant, she'd learn to do things for herself.'

     "My mother-in-law's mother died when she was still a little girl. An aunt took her in, because she had nowhere else to go. That aunt treated her like a servant. Before she was 12-years-old she was cooking, cleaning, and taking care of her aunt's worthless children. And my wife is trying to tell me she can't serve herself a bowl of menudo?

     "But I shouldn't be surprised. All the dog experts say to leave your dog's food out no more than 15 minutes. It trains them to eat. Our dogs don't know how to eat like a dog, because my wife leaves their food out for hours. All day, even. They'll eat a kibble here, they'll eat a bit there, and, when it's time to go to bed, they still haven't eaten properly.

     " 'Their food is going to get stale,' I'll tell her.

     Doesn't matter.

     " 'There's contanimants in the air that are landing in the dog's food.'

     "Still doesn't matter.
     "Experts from all over the world say one thing, but my wife knows better. Well, it isn't actually that. What it is, is that she and Boswell would rather do things their own way and get bad results, than to be told how to do things properly. They hate being told what to do.

     "So why am I surprised?"

 

 

Raising My Father

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God, My Dad, & the NSA (Part One)

My Dad never answers the phone. NEVER!

     A couple of weeks ago I went to the doctor. My ears have been bothering me for months but, being a man, I waited almost six months before I decided to go see a doctor. My hearing is fine, but it's the voices in my head that are the problem.
     Just joking.
     I don't hear voices, I know it's just my wife and my Dad talking to me, but my inner ears do hurt, I'm not joking about that part.
     (But, since I bring up the subject of voices in people's heads, why don't those voices ever tell those people to get a job?)

     Well, anyway, I went to see the doctor. He ran all kinds of tests, or, rather, he authorized a bunch of tests for others to perform on me (stay in school, kids). He had me hearing sounds. Soft sounds, loud sounds. He had me hearing beeps. High-pitched beeps. Low-pitched beeps. The works. Then he had me take some x-rays. Just what I've always wanted, X-rays penetrating my brain. I guess I can look forward to brain cancer in the future
     After all that, I found myself back with the doctor. He wasn't in the mood to socialize because he had a Waiting Room full of patients to ignore, so he told me that he would call me later in the day. He'd let me know the results of all those tests over the phone, and then we could talk about where we'd go from there.
     I asked him to leave me a message if I wasn't home.
     He said he would.
     I thanked him--because that's just the way I roll--and off I went.

     I got home and waited. And then I waited some more. Ant then I waited even more. I waited until I had to go out. Why I had to go out, I don't know. Where I went, and what I did, I can't remember. I have no idea what it was that was so important that I had to  leave. But I left.
     Unfortunately, my wife was out and about doing what she does best... shopping.
     I say "unfortunately" because she wasn't home to take a message in case the doctor called while I was out doing that very important thing I don't remember.
     I can't say too much about her going out and spending a few dollars, because she's not wasteful. She just likes to shop. Like me, she doesn't drink, smoke, gamble, or have any bad habits. There's one bad habit I wish she had, but that's neither here nor there.
     It's not here, but I wish it were there. In my bedroom. If you get my drift.
     Myself, I can buy hundreds of dollars worth of ammo, and she won't tell me anything. I'm a gun collector (which might be one reason she doesn't tell me anything), and ammo is very expensive. Or I could buy myself another gun. Which I just did. A rifle. I promised my three-year-old grandson that I'd take him dinosaur hunting.
     But that's another story.

     Getting back to my story.

     I get home and find my Dad sitting in his--my-- favorite chair. He's watching TV. Baseball. His usual M.O. As always, all the lights are on in the great room, the kitchen, and his bedroom. Dollar signs fly past me as I open the door to the kitchen and walk in. I've just started making myself a cup of coffee when he calls me over
     "Yeah, Dad?" I ask him.

     "Your doctor called," he tells me.

     I was surprised, because my Dad--in all the time he's lived with us--has never answered the phone. I didn't think he even knew how to answer the phone, or what a phone was. Of course I'm talking about a modern phone. All the buttons confuse him. Heck, he doesn't even know how to use one when my wife hands it to him and tells him someone is already on the line. But...
     ...that's another story.

     "What was that?" I asked him. Maybe I misunderstood.

     "Your doctor called." Nope, I didn't.

     "My doctor called?"

     "Are your ears bothering you? That's what I said."

     "Well, what did he say?"
     "What did who say?"

     "What did the doctor say?"

     "What doctor?"

     "My Doctor."

     "Your doctor? What about your doctor?"
     Shoot! I thought, only I didn't say "shoot."

     "You said that my doctor called while I was out. Well, what did he say?"

     "Oh, yeah... well--hee, hee, hee--the doctor..." Smack, smack, smack! "I think he said you were all right."

     "You think he said that I was all right?"
     "Yeah, that's what I think."
     "What else did he say?"
     "What?"
     "What else did my doctor say?"
     "Who?"
     "My doctor."
     "What about him?"
     "What did he say?"

     "Oh, yeah... it sounded like he said you were all right."
     "You're sure? You're sure he said I was all right?"
     "Or he said it was your right side... or your right shoulder? Your right shoulder is your bad shoulder, isn't it? The one you hurt? He also said some other things, but I can't remember." Blah, blah, blah.

     All I can say is that my Dad never--and I mean never--answered the phone... until that phone call. My phone call. My important phone call.
     Why did he answer it?
     Only God, my Dad, and perhaps the NSA know why.

     I was telling my buddy Maloney about it. That guy's never met a conversation he couldn't make about himself.

     "You think you've got problems?" Maloney told me...
  

   

Raising My Father

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@JimDuchene

 

Holidaze With Dad (Part Four)

Remember the brother I told you about? The one who buys expensive gifts, but gets them at a really good price?
     Well, he and his family came by on New Year's Eve to finally celebrate Christmas with us. He was going to wait until after the holidays to visit, but I made the mistake of saying "free meal," and before I knew it he was at my door. I think this is the fourth Christmas gathering we've celebrated this year.
     Anyway, he gave our Dad a single--as in one--shirt for Christmas as a gift from him and his family. He must have still had some stashed away from the fire sale at Macy's where he bought a dozen expensive name-brand shirts for the price of a six-pack.
     "I wanted to buy Dad more than one shirt," his wife told my wife, "but he told me, 'What for? Dad doesn't go anyplace.' "
     And while that's true, he could at least have splurged for some Joint Juice. I hear they sell them for a good price if you buy them at Costco by the case.
     After my brother almost ate us out of house and home, he left. Unfortunately, he took his family with him.
     "Come back when you can't stay so long," I told him. To his family, I said, "But you guys can stay as looong as you like."
     His kids laughed at my joke.
     "Yeah, Dad," his twelve-year-old daughter with the occasional sharp sense of humor repeated, "come back when you can't stay so long."
     It was kind of late when they left, and my Dad was pretty tired.
     "I'm going to bed," he told no one in particular, gathered his gifts, and then looked at my wife with a semi-confused look on his face. You would have thought he was trying to sign up for ObamaCare.
     "Where's my other t-shirt?" he asked her, looking around.
     "What?" my wife asked him, not really understanding.
     Heck, I was watching the whole thing, and I didn't understand what my Dad was talking about. But then, I don't understand what he's talking about half the time anyway.
     "Where's my other shirt?" my Dad repeated.
     My wife looked at me, then she looked back at my Dad--who was pointedly looking around the floor for his phantom 2nd shirt--then she looked back at me, mouthed the words, "What shirt?"--I shrugged, "I don't know."--and then she looked back at my Dad.

      "You only got one shirt," she said, breaking the bad news to him.

      "No, I got two," he said. "They gave me two."
     "I'm sure it was one, Dad."
     "No, it was two."

     "They gave you one shirt and a picture of your granddaughter," she said, trying to make the gift of one shirt seem grander than it was.

     "No, I'm TELLING you" my Dad said, telling us, "I got TWO shirts. Where's the other one?"
     He was inching toward crossing the line of actually accusing us of stealing his shirt.

     'I don't know, Dad," my wife said, slightly changing her tactics. "I only saw them give you the one shirt."

     She checks all the bags, moves around the wrapping paper and tissue inside the black trash bag we threw them away in, and even showed my Dad the empty box the single shirt came it.

     "This is the box your gift came in and it only had one shirt."

     "No," my Dad continued to insist, despite the mounting evidence, "there were two shirts." He sighed. "Well, maybe, he took it back."
     "I bet you're right, Dad," I saw my opportunity and finally chimed in. "I bet he took it back."
     If there's one thing brothers enjoy doing, it's getting each other in trouble... so I did. Just like old times.

     Well, my wife probably thought, it's time for me to leave. So she did.

     Ten minutes later I was upstairs and she asked me what happened.

     I told her, "Well, I'd rather he think my brother took the shirt back than for him to blame us, so I just continued to agree with him."
     She assured me that he only got one shirt and a picture, in a frame, of his granddaughter.
     I told her, "I know, babe. I know."
     I don't know why she was explaining this to me, since I was there, but more than that, what would she want with one of my Dad's shirts? What's next, she'll be wearing his black socks with her athletic shoes?
     She laughed when I told her that when my Dad was heading out the door to his little father-in-law house, I caught up with him in the kitchen and handed him the framed picture of his granddaughter.
     "What's this?" my Dad asked me.
     "It's the picture they gave you," I answered, as if his question needed any answering at all. "Of your granddaughter."
     My Dad didn't say anything. He just kept looking at the framed picture in my hand.
     "This looks like a pretty nice frame," I told him, trying to be nice. I guess it worked--kind of--because he finally reached out and took it from my hand.
     "I don't have room for that picture," he said, placed it on the kitchen counter, and walked out of our house and into his.
 
 

Raising My Father

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