What Happened To The Game?

As usual, my father is sound asleep in the family room.
     I don't know how he can sleep because, as always, he has the TV blasting away. He must have been watching a baseball game, because that's what's on. I can see it from the kitchen counter where I'm sitting. It's the 5th inning and, boy, is he missing one good game.

     Unfortunately, my Dad's snoring gets the best of me, so I leave and return just as the game is done. The players are all jumping up and down. They're congratulating each other because they won at the last second.
     And that's when my father wakes up.
     "Wow-weeeeeee," he says, looks at the TV, and then, "Hmmm... what the?"
     My father sits up a little straighter in his--my--favorite chair, so he can get a better look at the screen.
     "What's going on?" he asks no one in particular, because I know he's not talking to me.
     I answer anyway.
     "What's that, Pop?"
     "I can't understand what's going on," he tells me. "It's only the 5th inning, and I can't figure out what just happened."

     "The game's over," I break the news to him.

     "What do you mean the game's over?"
     "What do you mean, what do I mean? The game over, finished, kaput."
     "What the?" he says. "The game can't be over."
     "It's over, Pop."
     "You're wrong," he tells me. "It's only the 5th inning."

     I try to keep it simple.
     "The game just ended," I tell him. "The other team won on their last bat."

     "That can't be," he continue to argues. "It's only the 5th inning."
     I hesitate to say the following, but...
     "You fell asleep," I tell him.
     "Fell asleep?"
     "Yes, fell asleep."
     "I didn't fall asleep."
     "You fell asleep."
     "I just had something in my eye..."
     My Dad fascinates me sometimes.
     "...and I was trying to work it out."
     Why he won't just admit he fell asleep and missed the game....
     "I wasn't asleep."
     ...is beyond me.
     "Hmmm..." Smack, smack, SMACK! "Ahhh..." Click! "I just closed my eyes for a couple of seconds..." he says, and moves his head in closer to me so I can get a good look, "...you see, I had something in it and I was just trying to get it out."
     He puts a forefinger under his eye and pulls down. Not a sight I particularly want to see.
     "See that? Now, how could the game have ended in the few seconds it took for me to clear my eye?"
     He keeps trying to show me the inside of his lower eyelid.
     I keep trying to ignore it.
     "Blah, blah, blah," he corrects.
     "Wah, wah, wah," he complains.
     "Not asleep... game over... 5th inning..." he repeats.

     Well, I've been told that I shouldn't really tell him when he falls asleep, because he gets mad at the unwanted information and takes it out on everybody, but it is what it is.

     "Well, Pop," I say, finally, "all I can tell you is the game is over."

     "It can't be over," my Dad denies.
     "This game better not be over if it knows what's good for it." he threatens, angrily.
     "I'd give my first-born son..." (me) "...for it not to be over," he bargains with the devil.
     "Why, oh why, does it have to be over?" he cries as he settles into a deep depression.
     "Well, I'll be... it's over," he finally accepts...
     ...and falls back to sleep.

 
 

Raising My Father

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