The TV in the great room is blasting.
It's on a cooking show. My father, who's never cooked a meal in his life and never will, likes to watch shows like Top Chef or Cutthroat Kitchen or anything with Guy Fieri, who's given my father many hours worth of entertainment wondering how it's possible to have bleached hair with black roots.
"How does it grow that way?" he'll ask no one in particular.
"He colors it that way," my wife will explain to him
"He does?" my father will respond, seemingly amazed at the idea. And then: "But how does it grow that way?"
I like Top Chef, but mainly I like that hot girl who tells all the cooks to take their knives and stick them where the sun don't shine. An insult coming from a hot model somehow seems less insulting. If she told me, 'Take your knives and go," the only thing I would hear would be: "Chocolate cake."
On the cooking show my Dad is not watching, a woman who looks like the cartoon character Dr. McStuffins from the Disney channel is one of the cooks. The other two are a skinny white guy and a fat white guy with a bald head and pony tail. I don't mean to imply racism by pointing out that these guys are white, but they are. I don't judge a man by the color of his skin, I judge him by whether or not he wears a pony tail. My father, meanwhile, sits in front of the TV looking like he's agreed to go toward the light, and I'm not talking about the one on the TV screen.
It's on a cooking show. My father, who's never cooked a meal in his life and never will, likes to watch shows like Top Chef or Cutthroat Kitchen or anything with Guy Fieri, who's given my father many hours worth of entertainment wondering how it's possible to have bleached hair with black roots.
"How does it grow that way?" he'll ask no one in particular.
"He colors it that way," my wife will explain to him
"He does?" my father will respond, seemingly amazed at the idea. And then: "But how does it grow that way?"
I like Top Chef, but mainly I like that hot girl who tells all the cooks to take their knives and stick them where the sun don't shine. An insult coming from a hot model somehow seems less insulting. If she told me, 'Take your knives and go," the only thing I would hear would be: "Chocolate cake."
On the cooking show my Dad is not watching, a woman who looks like the cartoon character Dr. McStuffins from the Disney channel is one of the cooks. The other two are a skinny white guy and a fat white guy with a bald head and pony tail. I don't mean to imply racism by pointing out that these guys are white, but they are. I don't judge a man by the color of his skin, I judge him by whether or not he wears a pony tail. My father, meanwhile, sits in front of the TV looking like he's agreed to go toward the light, and I'm not talking about the one on the TV screen.
I'm hungry, but instead of seeing what Ronald McDonald is up to, I decide to make myself lunch. It's early, but it's clear to me that the coast is clear now and might not be later. My father is out like Jeb Bush's presidential ambitions, and the TV's volume will block out any noise I'll make. I prepare my feast and put it in the toaster oven to heat.
I'm sitting at the counter, waiting. My back is to my father in an attempt to not lose my appetite. That's when I hear a VERY LOUD gargling sound.
Please, no.
There's a swishing of liquid and then a smacking of lips.
"Ahhhhhhh!" I hear him say. Smack! Smack! Smack! I hear him go. Click! Click! Click! I hear him, well, click.
I sit... I wait... and, like David Carradine as Kwai Chang Caine in Kung Fu, I listen, hoping the noises and the exclamations, like General MacArthur's old soldier, fade away. My lunch is almost ready. Maybe I can wait him out.
But no.
I hear a shifting in his--my--favorite chair. It's my father, like a geriatric Godzilla, coming back to life.
I wait, very quietly.
I hear him gargle his drink very loudly. He must have his mouth open. Occasionally, he stops to swish the liquid back and forth. He then smacks and clicks his lips together several times before he starts the process all over again.
The whole thing makes me feel like gagging.
Please, no.
There's a swishing of liquid and then a smacking of lips.
"Ahhhhhhh!" I hear him say. Smack! Smack! Smack! I hear him go. Click! Click! Click! I hear him, well, click.
I sit... I wait... and, like David Carradine as Kwai Chang Caine in Kung Fu, I listen, hoping the noises and the exclamations, like General MacArthur's old soldier, fade away. My lunch is almost ready. Maybe I can wait him out.
But no.
I hear a shifting in his--my--favorite chair. It's my father, like a geriatric Godzilla, coming back to life.
I wait, very quietly.
I hear him gargle his drink very loudly. He must have his mouth open. Occasionally, he stops to swish the liquid back and forth. He then smacks and clicks his lips together several times before he starts the process all over again.
The whole thing makes me feel like gagging.
I know he must do it on purpose, but just how he knows when I'm getting ready to eat is beyond me. Maybe he sits there, with one eye open, pretending to be asleep. Maybe, in the dead of night, he inserted some kind of a James Bond tracking device just under my skin where I wouldn't notice, and then proceeded to lay in wait. Maybe he does it to make me leave the room. Which I did.
I'll eat later.
I'll eat later.
Raising My Father
RaisingMyFather.blogspot.com
jimduchene.blogspot.com American Chimpanzee
@JimDuchene
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