I'll Mail It To You

My wife loves me.

     I know this without a doubt.

     We've been married too many years for me to mention because it might give you an idea of how old she is. We've had kids and grandkids, houses and homes, and moved from here to there. Mainly there. But who does she ask first when she's offering pie?

     You guessed it.

     My father.

     "Dad," she says, making her first mistake "do you want some pie?"

     I say it's a mistake, because instead of just bringing him a slice of pie, which he would then enthusiastically consume without complaint, she tries to engage him in conversation and give him a choice, which she feels is important for him.

     I've found it's better to just say, "Here's some pie, Dad," and then hand him his plate.

     If you hand my father anything, he'll take it.

     Especially if it's a plate of food.

     Or money.

     But...

     If you give him a choice...

     He'll answer, "What?"

     Or, "Who?"

     Or "Where?"

     Or "When?"

     Or "Why?"

     My father. He would have made a good newspaper reporter. In the meantime...

     "Mumble, mumble, mumble," he says, which is also another way he tends to answer.

     "Do you want some apple pie?" my wife patiently asks him again.

     "Hmmm..." he says. "Apple pie... " he considers. And then, "What about apple pie?"

     "Do you want me to serve you some apple pie?" my wife bravely continues forward.

     "Hmmm..." my father considers once again, and then it ends quickly, more quickly than the two of us are used to.

     I look at my wife.

     My wife looks at me.

     "What?" her eyes say.

     "Who? Where? When? Why?" my eyes respond.

     "No," my father tells her. "I'm full."

     "Are you sure, Dad?" my wife clarifies, looking for closure.

     "Honey," I've told her in the past, "there's no such thing as closure. Especially with my Dad." But she never listens.

     "Are you sure you don't want some pie?"

     "You served me too much breakfast," he tells her in a way that sounds like a chastisement. "You always serve me too much mumble, mumble, mumble."

     Fortunately, we can't make out the last part of his sentence because I'm sure it didn't end with, "Thank you."

     I walk into the kitchen a little later, just minding my own business, when--no more pie for me!

     I caught the old timer eating pie right out of the pie plate!

     I've told my wife (and I've told her and told her), "Don't leave anything I might want to eat on the counter where my father can get to it."

     She says she won't, but she'll do it anyway. I think she does it on purpose. It's her way of keeping me on my doctor's diet.

     Now why, why am I such a jerk that I don't want anything I might eat to be within a silly little millimeter's reach of my father?

     Because my father coughs.

     And he sneezes.

     And he blows his nose.

     And he doesn't care where he does these things. And he doesn't care to cover his mouth when he does these things. It must be an evolutionary thing. He may do it to mark his territory.

     "This is my food! And no one had better eat it!"

     You see, back in our caveman days, the only way the elderly cavemen would have something to eat at the end of a busy day of hunting and gathering, was by grossing out all the younger, stronger cavemen. Once a caveman was too old to hunt or to gather,* the only way for him to survive was to put boogers on anything worth eating. Which reminds me...

     For some reason, my father also likes to lean over and smell any food that's on the kitchen counter. Any food that he's considering helping himself to, which is ALL the food. Even food he's not sure about, he'll lean over and take a whiff. He'll then weigh the pros and the cons, the goods and the bads, the Simons and the Garfunkels. The problem with all this smelling of food is there's always a little drop of nostril-juice hanging precariously to the tip of his nose, constantly threatening to fall off. Why he feels the need to get his nose within dripping distance of my food, I have no idea. Wait a minute...

     My father sees me.

     This time, he does the polite thing. He puts down the spoon he's been caught gobbling the pie with, takes out his handkerchief--the dirty one he hasn't washed since the great war--and blows his nose. Done, he puts the handkerchief back into his front pocket.

     "You want some pie?" he asks me.

     I've noticed that he hasn't bothered to wash his hands.

     "No, thanks, dad," I tell him. No more pie for this guy. Ever.

     If you're hungry, send me your address.

     I'll mail it to you.

 

 

Raising My Father

RaisingMyFather.BlogSpot.com

jimduchene.BlogSpot.com  American Chimpanzee

@JimDuchene

   
* If I were a caveman, I might have pretended to not be able to hunt or gather, but that would only be so I could stay back and have all the lonely cavewomen to myself.