as featured in Desert Exposure Magazine
RaisingDad
by Jim and Henry Duchene
Another Four Stories
“let sleeping angels lie”
When my granddaughter was four-years-old we were driving back from a road trip and she was asleep in her car seat. She looked like an angel, her hair a delicate tangle of curls. She was perspiring the way children sometimes do when they slumber.
Suddenly, she startled awake.
“Are you okay?” I asked her.
She looked around, slow to take in her surroundings.
“I dreamt my hair was on fire,” she finally told me.
“Well, you’re safe now,” I assured her. After a few seconds I dipped a toe into the water. “You woke up pretty quick,” I said.
She nodded.
“You wake up fast when your hair’s on fire,” she told me.
I guess you do.
Now my granddaughter is eight, and she’s a pretty bright kid (she gets it from me). She’s back at school and was telling me they were teaching her about fire safety. She had learned to Stop-Drop-And-Roll, been reacquainted with dialing 9-1-1, and that it's "Smokey Bear," not "Smokey THE Bear."
Playfully testing her knowledge, I asked, "What would you do if your clothes were on fire?"
"I'd buy some new ones," she said.
********************
I've told you how my buddy Maloney and his wife Gail ended up living together, but I've never told you how they ended up getting married.
Maloney was laid low by an aggressive bout with the flu, and she moved in to take care of him. Unfortunately, once he got better, she didn't move out. As far as I could tell, taking care of him consisted of her eating bon bons and watching TV while Maloney slept the day away, but that's neither here nor there.
Well, maybe not here, but it DID end up there. At the Justice of the Peace, I mean. Where the two of them entered the first of what's considered a trifecta of fine institutions. Prison being the second, and a mental facility the third.
"You're already living together," I told him. "Why get married?"
"It's a case of opposites attracting," he explained. "SHE'S pregnant and I'm not."
********************
I was driving with my father recently.
We were on our way to lunch.
On my dime.
I don't want to say he takes advantage of being diagnosed pre-Alzheimer's, but it sure is convenient how he always forgets to reach for his wallet when the check comes.
Anyway, what happened next in the car made me lose my appetite.
"Did you just pass gas?" I asked my father.
My father gave me a sly grin.
"Of course I did,” he chuckled. “What do you think, it’s my natural aroma?"
When we got to the restaurant he continued being a little stinker.
“Where have you been all my life?" he flirted as the hostess showed us to our table.
Fortunately, the young girl could hold her own.
"Waiting to be born,” she answered, sweetly.
********************
"What are you doing?" my father asked me.
Wait a minute... cancel that.
Let me begin by saying that I hate having to sign up for new things on my old, out-of-date Apple computer and having to constantly come up with different passwords.
Which is what I was doing.
"I'm trying to think of a new password, pop," I told him.
He had seen how stymied I had been for these last few minutes, so he couldn't resist rubbing it in a bit.
"What's so hard about that?" he said.
"It's just hard to come up with something unique that's easy to remember," I told him.
"Let me try," he offered.
My initial instinct was to say no, but I've learned that when you tell people no, they will quit offering to help.
"Okay," I told him, "but it has to be eight characters long."
"Eight characters? That's easy," my father snorted in victory. "Snow White & The Seven Dwarfs."
********************
What’s worse than entering middle aged?
Exiting it.
@JimDuchene
