Monday, June 23, 2014

I'm Not Evil. I Just Act That Way.

My Dad has this habit that annoys me.
     Well, he has more than one habit that annoys me, but I hold my tongue because they aren't worth losing the inheritance that awaits me. That is, if he doesn't outlive me.
     Anyway, my father constantly blows his nose. All day. Into the same sheet of Kleenex. I never see him throw it away. I never see him get a new one. I never see him wash his hands.
     In the mornings, he'll come out of his room honking the old horn. He'll sit at the table, blow his nose, turn the Kleenex over, and honk into it again.
     He does this all day long.
     When I eat, I'll eat at the counter, several yards away from him, trying to stay out of the range of any flying snot that might escape his Kleenex.
     My wife is a saint, she knows not to serve me from anything that he puts his hand on or in. I've apologized to her, to my Mom in Heaven, and to the good Lord watching me be a jerk. I'll tell her, "Look, he blows his nose at the table, at the sink, while eating, while watching TV. He blows his nose into the same Kleenex all day long, over and over. And then he'll blow it again. I don't know what it is that he keeps blowing out, because there's not that many boogers in the world."
     "I know, dear." she tells me. "I know."
     Which translates to, "Can I get back to what I was doing before your Dad blew his nose?"
     This thing with my Dad goes on constantly, but mainly when I'm trying to sit down and eat something. Or maybe that's just when I notice it the most. But how many times can he use the same Kleenex over and over again before every inch is saturated with the green slim? And it's not like we have a shortage of Kleenex. There are boxes all over the house. One in each room for my father's enjoyment. But I have yet to see him take advantage of this abundance of tissue paper, and I have yet to see him wash his hands after blowing his nose.
     My wife believes in solving problems, so she has agreed to not put all the cookies on the out, because if he puts his hand into a bag of anything, those treats automatically become his, his, and only his. I will not eat anything from that bag. I won't even reach in to take a cookie out to give to my brother when he comes to eat me out of house and home.
     Speaking of my brother, one time we went to Laughlin, Nevada for a few days. We were there to have fun, see the sights, and find out that we should have gone to Las Vegas instead. Laughlin is a nice place... if you're older. Or a biker.
     The night we drove in, the biker convention was just ending. Bikers know when their convention is over when the cops confiscate all their bikes and kick them out of town.
     One morning, my brother and I went to the breakfast buffet at the casino we were staying at. I'd tell you its name, but the traumatic experience I experienced wiped it from my memory. We filled our plates with a small mountain of eggs and bacon and hash browns and sausage and other things I've had to cut back on under the advice of a doctor whom I seem to paying to give me bad news.
     Sitting next to us was an elderly, well-dressed couple. The man was wearing a sports jacket and the woman was wearing a very pretty red dress with a tasteful amount of jewelry. Just as I was about to start chowing down, the lady, who should have known better because she was a lady after all, started honking her horn and clearing up phlegm from her throat with huge snot-clearing sound effects.
     That was it for breakfast. I couldn't eat. However, the appetite I lost seemed to go to my brother, who went back for seconds.
     When I went to China to run a marathon that included running on the Great Wall, one thing that struck me was how dirty everything was. I don't mean dirty as in dirt and grime, although there was that too, but dirty as in snot and spit and shit.
     Walking down the streets you'd see Chinese person after Chinese person--men and women alike--hacking up huge gobs of phlegm and spitting it on the ground where you're walking. If their nose is clogged with boogers, they think nothing of putting a finger to one nostril and blasting out that snot onto the ground or the sidewalk or the street. And then they'll clear out the other nostril, just to make sure they've properly disgusted you.  I saw little children emptying their bowels on the curb of the streets. I don't mean to say that the children were doing it of their own accord. They were encouraged by their parents to do it. Toddlers even wore special underwear to help them accomplish this act. Fortunately, I never saw adults do this, but that doesn't mean that they did or they didn't, it just means that I didn't see them if they did.
     Don't believe me? Then ask the Chinese government, who forbade their citizens from doing these vomit-inducing acts while the Olympics was in town.
     As a result, I found it hard to eat any of the food that was sold in street carts or restaurants, even the restaurants that catered to foreign tourists. Every time I tried to eat, I couldn't help but think of all the snotting or spitting or shitting that was going on. Logically, if all this bodily waste was everywhere I could see and touch, then why wouldn't it be in my food as well? It's possible these bodily excretions gave the food a delicious quality that I cheated myself out of experiencing, but--Cha! You know what?--I don't care.
     As for the bathrooms, think of the filthiest, nastiest bathroom you've ever been in, whether it's at a gas station or at your in-law's house. Well, the bathrooms I saw in China were ten times worse than that. Maybe a hundred. Apparently, it's against the law to flush the toilet after you've just taken a nice healthy dump.
     After the marathon, I was having dinner with one of the people who helped set up the whole affair. A very nice Chinese gentleman, who explained to me that while we Americans find their habits disgusting, they find our habit of blowing our noses into handkerchiefs or Kleenex that we hold in our hands to be just as disgusting. As if tossing in his agreement, a Chinese man sitting at the table next to us hocked up a hairball and spat it on the floor.
     Needless to say, I didn't eat that day either.
     Hey! I can hear you complaining. Why are you picking on the Chinese? What about Japan?
     Did you know that in Japan they don't find it offensive to fart in public? What does that mean? It means that if you're thinking about riding the elevator, take the stairs instead.
     In a way, all this reminds me of the time B.D. (Before Dad) when my wife and I traveled in France. We were at an expensive fancy-dancy French restaurant (but, really, it could have been ANY French restaurant). It was so expensive that the wait-staff didn't even bother to pretend they didn't speak English, but not fancy-dancy enough to keep them from being thoroughly disgusted by we ugly Americans who rudely demanded more ice in our (supposedly) cold drinks. The French are a snooty bunch, at least from our experience, and apparently don't believe in the old adage that the customer is always right, because they did nothing to make this customer and his wife happy.
     Sometimes I make it a point to embarrass my wife, and this time was no exception. When the waiter kept wondering why we wanted more ice in our drink...
     ("Waiter, can we have more ice in our drinks?"
     "You say you would like more ice, then, yes?"
     "Yes, we would like more ice, please."
     "More ice?"
     "Yes, more ice."
     "Hmm, you would like more ice."
     "More ice, yes."
     "Excuse me, please."
     And then he would leave, and then he would return without any additional ice.)
     ...I finally told him that if he went to the cheapest restaurant in the United States in the most run down part of any city, one thing he would find in abundance would be ice.
     "In America," I told him, "we have machines that do nothing but make ice."
     "You do, do you?" he answered.
     "Yes, and we also have soap."
     Anyway...
     So it's not personal, and I've told my wife exactly that. Anybody could be emptying out any bodily orifice of theirs, even Jesus or Buddha or Mohoward, and I would feel the same way. Disgusted.
     Fortunately for me, I have a very understanding wife. She makes sure I have my bag of treats and my Dad has his. Some times I wonder what it's like for her to take care of two grown babies.
     The other day I accidentally left "my" bag of cookies out in the open. I like those cheap waffle cookies that are 90 per cent air. They remind me of my childhood. My Mom used to buy them all the time. She would buy the three flavors they came in: vanilla, strawberry and chocolate, and I would enjoy every one. Anyway...
     ...as my Dad walks by, they catch his attention. He stops in front of them and stands there,  staring at them. I feel like I'm in one of those bad cop movies where the hero's partner is about to get killed while the hero is only able to stand there helplessly.
     Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
     My Dad  stands there, takes out his Kleenex, and blows his nose a couple of times. He turns the Kleenex over and blows it again. He looks into the Kleenex, mumbles something while surveying the damage, and puts the Kleenex back in his pocket.
     He picks up the bag, opens it. There are only six or seven cookies in the bag. My Dad grabs all them all, takes them out, and places them on the counter. He pulls out his slightly used--Aw, who am I kidding?--Kleenex and blows his nose yet again. He turns the Kleenex over, blows his nose, and then turns it over again. I swear he does a complete 360 with that Kleenex. There is not one atom that is not tainted with snot.
     All the while I'm watching him like a hawk. What's he going to do? What's my Dad's next step going to be?
     Well, my Dad grabs one cookie, takes a bite out of it, and then puts the rest of them back in the bag. The cookies are all exactly the same. Why he had to take them all out and fondle them just to end up eating only one, I'm sure I'll never know. He doesn't even close my bag, and walks to his--my--favorite chair in the great room and finishes eating it.
     Now, what am I going to do with the boogery cookies left in the bag? I, for sure, am not going to eat them. I don't know if any of them actually have any booger residue on them, but my Dad didn't raise me to take any chances.
     Think I'm being silly?
     Well, let's say I made you a delicious cake. And let's further say that I added an ounce of feces to that cake. And let's say the feces made the cake even more delicious. Now, if I served you a slice... would you eat it?
     I didn't think so.
      So what did I do with them? Did I throw them away? Did I give them to my dog?
      No, I gave them to my cheap brother when he came by to pick up some audiobooks I was giving him. I'm not saying my bother is cheap, but he got married for the free rice.
     "Hey, do you like waffle cookies?" I asked him when he came by. He was helping himself to some Gatorade from the refrigerator. I guess he was low on electrolytes.
     "I love waffle cookies," he said.
     I pointed to the bag on the counter.
     "Help yourself," I told him.
     And he did.
     To all of them.
     I'm not evil. I just act that way.
 
 
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