I'm upstairs vacuuming and shampooing the carpet. There was a time when I used to run with the wolves. How did I ever become so domesticated? Meanwhile, my wife is MIA. That means she's out shopping. Which means she's out spending money. I wish I lived in her world. My Dad is supposed to be downstairs watching TV.
I go downstairs.
0900 hours: All the lights are on in the great room, the kitchen, and the TV is blasting.
Sometimes my father turns everything on, goes to his room, and comes back a few minutes later. Sometimes he turns everything on, goes to his room, and forgets to come back for hours. I don't know what he does in that little father-in-law house he lives in in the front of our property. Maybe he naps. Maybe he just sits and stares at the wall and thinks about his life. I do that sometimes. Mainly my old high school girlfriends. They were pretty hot back in the day. Now they probably look like grandmothers. Which they probably are. Why am I saying "probably"?
Recently, an old high school girlfriend of mine tracked me down .
I received an email from her that said: "Are you...? Who went to high school at...?"
I answered back.
"Give me a call," she wrote back, and included her phone number.
I don't like to lie. Mainly because I'm not good at it. So I told my wife about her.
"Do you mind if I give her a call?" I said, asking for permission. I thought it might be nice to catch up.
Mind you, my wife and I have been married for a while now, so we've learned to be polite with each other.
"I won't tell you what to do," she told me, "but it would hurt me."
So I didn't call.
Not that I would have, because the more I thought of it, the more I realized that my old high school girlfriend was just that: Old. Which looks good on me, but who knows what it looked like on her. I might have met her for coffee expecting to see the 16-year-old who showed me such a good time, but what I would have ended up doing was meeting someone who looked like one of my aunts, ruining a nice memory in the process.
Not that I would have, because the more I thought of it, the more I realized that my old high school girlfriend was just that: Old. Which looks good on me, but who knows what it looked like on her. I might have met her for coffee expecting to see the 16-year-old who showed me such a good time, but what I would have ended up doing was meeting someone who looked like one of my aunts, ruining a nice memory in the process.
I end my stroll down memory lane, and get back to work. I wonder what all my old girlfriends would think if they saw me shampooing the carpet?
0930 hours: All the lights are still on in the great room and kitchen. The TV is still blasting.
I wonder what my Dad is doing.
1000 hours: Same as the above.
There's one sure way to get my Dad back in the house. that would be for me to sit in front of the TV in my favorite chair and put on something that's actually entertaining. If I did that, five seconds later he'd show up asking, "What's the rumpus?'
1030 hours: Same as before. Where the heck is my Dad?
I should go check on him, but who knows what he could be doing? Worst case scenario, I wake him up and he comes back into my house. I'm hard at work. I'm better off without the distraction.
1100 hours: After busting my hump upstairs vacuuming and shampooing the carpet, I go back downstairs and still find it all lit up like Disneyland's Electric Light Parade on Christmas Eve.
After two hours of wasting money, I figure enough is enough and go downstairs to turn everything off.
1130 hours: Man, who knew shampooing carpets was such hard work? It sure seemed easier when I used to hire other people to do it back before I retired.
As I turn off the machine to add more water and shampoo, I hear someone down stairs coughing real loud. I know it's my father. He's trying to get my attention.
The cough could mean several things.
It could mean: Anybody home?
It could mean: Well, then, come turn on the TV for me.
To: And make me a sandwich while you're at it. With chips.
But I just freeze and listen. It appears that my Dad is somewhere downstairs, probably at the foot of the stairs, coughing up to the second floor. Why am I saying probably?
The TV is still turned off. He doesn't know his daughter-in-law/personal assistant is out. What's my next move?
The way I look at it is this: He has his own TV in his own room. He knows how to turn on the TV in the great room. He shouldn't have left the room for over two hours and still expect everything to still be on. He knows the cost of wasting electricity--heck he only reminded me of it all of my teenage years--besides which, I'm busy.
Sure, I took time out of my workday to aggravate myself by going downstairs to check on a room I knew was empty. And, sure, what would it hurt me to go downstairs to turn on the TV for him? Make him a burrito, which, if you're not familiar with one, is kind of like a sleeping-bag for beans.
I could take off his slippers and give him a foot-rub. Do his nails. Comb his hair. He's already used to sitting down and being catered to hand and foot by my wife. As you can see, he won't even watch TV unless she's here to turn it on for him. He'd rather stand by the foot of the stairs coughing to get someone's attention.
But what would that get me?
Oh well... back to shampooing.
Raising My Father
RaisingMyFather.BlogSpot.com
jimduchene.BlogSpot.com Fifty Shades of Funny
@JimDuchene
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