Sunday, June 12, 2016

Battle of the Remote Controls

A month ago, I was awaken at 0430 hours (that's 4:30am, for all you non-military types) by loud voices that were coming from downstairs. In the fog of my semi-consciousness, I'd have sworn it was several men. They were either burglarizing my house or leaving me a new wide-screen HDTV, but I doubt that second part.
     I laid in bed for a few minutes, part of me trying to talk myself into getting up and the other part trying to talk myself into staying where I was at. I figured, if I'm asleep and they decide to kill me, well, I wouldn't know. I would just wake up in Heaven. Not a bad deal.
     Thoughts about my Dad floated somewhere in my non-slumberness. He sleeps in the bedroom downstairs. He'd take the first hit. "Well, he's an old man," I tried to justify my lack of movement. He's led a good life. Maybe it would be a blessing.
     Don't judge me, I was tired.
     Then I remembered that I was married and my wife was sleeping in bed besides me. If those guys were to make their way upstairs they'd have to deal with my very angry wife. I knew I couldn't put them through that, so I reached for Doggy. My gun. My grandson calls it that because I joke that "it barks here but bites over there." To make a long story short, I went downstairs and found my father sound asleep in the family room, with the TV blasting away. That's when I first came up with the idea of hiding the remote control, because, forget burglars, my Dad is going to kill me before I have the chance to spend any of his inheritance.
     But it's hard staying one step ahead of the old gummer. At first, turning off the TV downstairs with the extra remote was all it took to get him to bed. Well, as they say, necessity is the mother of invention, so somehow he has miraculously learned how to work the remote control. He can now change channels, raise the volume, and raise the volume some more. The worst thing, however, is he now knows how to turn the darn thing on. Personally, I've always thought that he's been screwing with us this whole time with his I-Can't-Do-Anything-Anymore bit. He only acts helpless because he likes being served.
     Recently, I turned off the TV four times using the spare remote control. Each time, he turned the set back on. I know you're probably thinking, "So he turns it back on. I 've seen cats do the same thing on America's Funniest Home Videos."
     Well, what makes this such a big deal is these last few years that he's lived with us, he's come into the great room, sat in his--my--favorite chair... and waited. Waited for my wife--his daughter-in-law (whom he treats as his personal servant) and mother to his grandchildren--turn on the television set for him. He waits for her, because if he waited for me, he'd be waiting a long time for something that wasn't going to happen. So, four times I sneak downstairs and use the spare remote to turn off the TV, and four times, after I go back upstairs, I hear the TV come back on downstairs.
     One time, I decided to take a different tack, so I muted the volume. I saw my father look quizzically at the remote in his hand, and figured I had him stumped, so I went back upstairs.
     "Hee, hee, hee," I tell my wife, pleased with my deviousness.
     "I have  headache," she tells me back.
     A few minutes later... I hear voices from downstairs.
     Now I have a headache.
     For someone who waits for my wife to salt and pepper his food for him because otherwise he'd just it there and stare at the shakers, he sure has learned to work the controls to the remote, so I decided that my next plan of action would be to hide the remote or, on one of his many trips to the bathroom, pull the batteries.
     Another day, I went downstairs at 0600 hours (6am)and he was already sitting in the family room. There's no telling what time he got up. He takes a long time to clean up and get dressed, so he was probably up before 0530 hours (5:30am). This time, however, he didn't wake us up with the TV blasting at Zero-Dark-Thirty.
     My father's erratic sleeping/waking routine is what drives me nuts. One night, for example, after toying with me for over an hour like a cat with a mouse, I finally turned off the TV and hid the remote. The guy just DID NOT want to go to bed. When he came back to the great room from the bathroom in the hall, he came back to an empty room with the TV off. I stayed on the stairs just long enough to hear him grumble, "What the fudge?"
     So... what happens?
     What happens is the next morning I found him asleep in the family room in front of the blacked-out TV. He must have fallen asleep waiting for my wife to come downstairs to turn on the TV for him. He looked kind of sad, laying with his arms and legs splayed all over the place on that big, comfortable chair without a blanket. Thank goodness it was me and not my wife who found him, because if it had been my better half, I'd be writing this from a cardboard box on the corner of Norfolk and Way.
     The bottom line is: he screws up my routine.
     I like to get up early, put the dogs out, and make myself a hot cup of gourmet coffee. You know, just sit and relax for an hour, watching the old Bowery Boys movies* I have recorded on TV. I like doing this all alone. It's meditative for me. Gets me ready to start my day. But my Dad...
     ...he likes screwing with me.
     It's now early Sunday morning. I've got my gourmet coffee in front of me, the TV is on the news but I'm not really watching it, I'm just waiting for the weather girl to come on. My wife is baking biscuits and getting things ready for breakfast. It's peaceful here, and we are enjoying some alone time together. 
     Then...
     My father walks in. He has his usual Screw-The-World look on his face, his floppy arms waving around like a disgruntled Muppet who's been laid-off from Sesame Street because of the bad economy.
     Without looking at anyone--no greetings, no good mornings, no "Thank God for another day!"--he says, "The toilet's plugged up." I shiver at what I might find when I go take a look. Meanwhile...
     He sits at the table and waits for his VIP breakfast.
 
  
Raising My Father
RaisingMyFather.blogspot.com
JimDuchene.blogspot.com  American Chimpanzee
@JimDuchene
   
*Thank you, TCM!
(And I'm not just saying that because they pay me.)
 
   

Saturday, June 4, 2016

Thank You, Muhammad Ali

My Dad is a big boxing fan.
     To this day, if there's a boxing match on, he'll watch it, it doesn't matter who's fighting.
     When Muhammad Ali fought Smoking Joe Frasier, I remember my father going by himself to see the film of the fight at the North Loop Drive-In. This was months after the fight was fought, and it was on a double-feature with The Godfather. A classic boxing match AND The Godfather? My father must have been in Heaven.
     The first time Cassius Clay--pre-Muhammad Ali--fought Sonny Liston in 1964, my father and I sat in the kitchen and listened to the fight on the radio, television not being the affordable addiction it is now.
     My Dad bet me 50 cents on the fight. Now 50 cents was like a thousand dollars in those days. I'm exaggerating, of course, but, for a kid, that's what it seemed like to me. It was probably closer to $3.50 in today's dollars.
     I didn't really understand the concept of gambling or paying off your gambling debts at that age, but I was caught up in the moment. It was something my father and I were sharing and I didn't want to spoil the moment.
     Now, if I lost, how would I have paid him?
     I didn't even have two wooden nickel to rub together back then, much less half a buck to pay him with if I had lost. It wasn't about the money to my father, he just wanted to make the fight more interesting, but it was about the money to me.
     As it turned out, I won and my Dad paid me. My Dad was not one to back down from a fight or welsh on a bet. I have no idea what happened after that or what I bought with the money. I bet it was something good.
     Thank you, Muhammad Ali.
 
...at the age of 74...
Muhammad Ali
6-3-2016
 
My father?
Still alive and doing the Ali Shuffle at 97.
 
 
Raising My Father
RaisingMy Father.blogspot.com
mrjimduchene.blogspot.com  American Chimpanzee
@JimDuchene