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This morning my wife greets me with a cup of coffee and a question.
"Guess what dad found?"
Let's see, what's the only thing my father's been looking for these days? What's the only thing my father's been blaming everybody but himself for misplacing? What's the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow?
"The keys the baby stole?" I venture, taking a sip of my coffee.
Ouch, it's hot... but it keeps me from laughing out loud. I know the baby didn't take them. My wife knows the baby didn't take them. The only person who doesn't seem to know is my father. According to him, his 2-year-old great-grandson snatched his keys out of his hand, stole his car, and maxed out his credit cards playing blackjack in Vegas.
Of course, I'm joking.
It was poker.
"Where did he find them?" I ask.
We take our coffee cups and go out to the patio, enjoying the morning. I take my usual spot. My wife takes hers.
"When he got dressed yesterday to go on his walk," she says, "he decided to wear his black pants..."
Black pants? It was 84 degrees outside! Way too hot to be walking around in black pants.
"...and there they were. In his pocket all this time."
We shake our heads, and laugh to ourselves. And then we talk about other things. We talk about the upcoming election. We talk about the next impeachment du jour. We talk about the last time we were in the house alone together for any length of time. You know, my wife sure does look pretty with the sunlight hitting her just so...
And THAT’s when my father decides to show up. He has that kind of timing.
"What are you guys talking about?” he asks as he sits down with us.
Getting old is funny. Most times, my father can't hear what we're saying when we're talking to him from only a few feet away, but somehow he hears everything we don't want him to hear.
He can be in the den with the television on. We can be in the kitchen with the radio on. We can have our backs to him. He can be facing away from us. But if I whisper to my wife, "Do you want to go see that new Marvel movie?" my father will interject, "The one with those superheroes?".
On the other hand, I could be sitting right next to him and ask, "Do you know where the remote to the TV is?"
"The what?" he’ll say.
"The remote to the TV."
"The what to the TV?"
"The remote."
"To the TV?"
"Yeah."
"Why would I know where the remote is?"
It drives me nuts.
On those rare conversations where he doesn't quite catch what we're saying, he'll just ask us afterward what we were talking about. First he'll ask my wife, then he'll ask me, and then he'll compare our stories to see if we're lying to him. It's gotten to the point where I'll wait until we're upstairs alone in our bedroom before I tell my wife anything.
Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
Sure, I could wait until he goes to bed, but that would be a long wait.
A VERY long wait.
"Ready for breakfast?" my wife asks, getting up.
"Sure, sweetie," I tell her. "Need help?"
"I'm fine," she says. "Finish your coffee."
"Not too much for me," my father tells her. "You always serve me too much."
"Okay, dad," my wife tells him, and goes off in the direction of the kitchen. "I won't."
We sit there for awhile. Me, taking a sip or two of my coffee. My father, wiping the sweat from his forehead. I told you it was hot.
"I heard you found your keys," I tell him.
He shakes his head and laughs.
"Yeah, heehee. I found them."
I wait.
He doesn't elaborate.
"Where did you find them?"
"What?"
"Where did you find them?"
"Find what?"
"Your keys."
"Where did I find my keys?"
"Yeah."
"Oh, yeah--heehee--they were in my pants."
"In your pants?"
"Yeah, in my pants. The maid must have put them there."
"So, the baby didn't take them from you?"
"Who?"
"The baby."
"Why would the baby take my keys?"
"But, didn't you say..."
"Say what?"
"...that the baby took your keys?"
"Why would I say that?"
My father laughs, shakes his head, and looks at me as if I was the mailman’s son.
"How could a baby take my keys from me?" he asks me. "I'm a grown man and he's, well, he’s just a baby."
Wasn’t that my point all along?
My wife pokes her head through the patio door.
After she opens it, I mean.
"Breakfast is ready," she says, smiling, knowing what we were probably talking about. I must get a particular kind of look on my face when my father has me flustered.
"Get this," my father tells her, nodding toward me. "He thinks the baby took my keys." My father turns back to me, and snorts. "How could a baby take my keys?"
We get up, and walk into the kitchen.
My father stops suddenly.
"Wait a sec," he says, giving me the stink eye, "how did you know I found my keys?"
American Chimpanzee
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