HOME bALONEy

The last Saturday before Christmas was busy.

     By the time I got home it was dark. My wife was already in bed watching something on her tablet. I'd tell you what, but I've forgotten. That's nothing unusual. I can forget any number between one and ten just by counting scoops of coffee into my coffee maker. My wife, on the other hand, says I don't listen to her, or some such nonsense.

     My two daughters were getting ready to go out and my granddaughter was by herself watching Home Alone in the living room. On the TV screen, a young girl was busy miscounting the children.
     Personally, I’ve never cared for Home Alone. With the exception of John Candy, there’s not one likable person in it. Sure, little Kevin is cute, but do you really like him? In a reflective moment inside a church, even he admits he’s a bit of a turd.
     I wanted to get on my laptop—to write this very column, in fact—but seeing my granddaughter by herself tugged at my heart a bit, so I joined her on the couch.
     “What did I miss?” I asked.
     She filled me in as I opened my laptop and started to type. Pretending to stretch, she snuck her foot into the palm of my left hand. Getting the hint, I began massaging her foot with one hand while typing with the other. She stretched again. Like magic, I found myself massaging both her feet. Smiling to myself, I turned off my laptop to give her a proper foot rub. There was nothing I needed to write more important than that. 

     She began telling me about her day, starting with finding Cookie, her Elf On A Shelf, inside the freezer.
     “She missed the cold,” she explained.
     “I hope she didn’t eat any of my Dilly Bars,” I said.
     “She ate TWO!” she told me, and I smiled at the little smudges of chocolate smearing the corners of her mouth.
     Somewhere along the line we settled down to watch the movie. “Why don’t these crooks just cross that house off their list once they see there’s somebody there?” I thought to myself as Kevin was making it seem there was a party going on, but I didn't say anything. My granddaughter likes the movie, so who am I to spoil it for her? I save that for my wife. 

     In the movie, there's a scary geezer who lives next door whom all the children are afraid of. He's a skinny, wrinkled old coot with a scraggly beard. Sharp nose. Mean piercing eyes. He looked like the kind of homeless man you'd cross the street to avoid.

     "You and him look alike," my granddaughter told me.

     "WHAT?" I yelped. Normally, I'm amused by her comments, but I couldn't let that one slide. "I don't look ANYTHING like him!"

     "You both have gray hair," she pointed out.

     "Well, besides that."

     "And you both have beards."

     Hmm... maybe I shouldn't have gotten so lackadaisical about my shaving habits.

     Kevin boobytraps his house to fend off two crooks who are coming to rob it. "Wouldn't it be easier to call the cops?" I wondered, but, again, I kept it to myself. My granddaughter laughed every time the crooks fell or got bonked on the head, but it looked rather painful to me. After a series of disasters, the crooks finally have Kevin trapped in the house across the street and are about to take their revenge when the scary old guy from next door comes to the rescue and knocks both of them out with a shovel to the head. A lot of head trauma in this movie. 

     All's well that ends well, as they say. Kevin successfully defended his home. The crooks were captured by the police. Why they had to be captured in the house across the street so Kevin doesn't get any credit, I don't know. You would think he'd want an alibi to explain the damage he caused to his own home. The next morning, his family shows up just in time for a happy ending. 

     The end. 

     Except...

     "KEVIN!" his big jerk of a brother barks from upstairs after discovering the mess Kevin made out of his room.

     But where were the other complaints?

     "Kevin, why is there tar spread all over the basement?"

     "Kevin, why are there two paint cans hanging over the stairs?"

     "Kevin, why did I just step on a nail sticking out of a wooden board?"

     "Kevin, why did this doorknob just give the palm of my hand third-degree burns?" 

     The house was a mess, feathers everywhere, and nobody noticed?

     I looked at my granddaughter. 

     She was laughing. 

     Like I said, who was I to complain?

     Sitting there, with my granddaughter snuggling next to me, I thought about the scary old neighbor. At the end of the movie he reconciles with his son who he hasn't talked to in years. When the son and his family show up Christmas morning, he lifts his granddaughter with old man arms and hugs her tightly, not wanting to let her go.

     I know that feeling.

     With a knuckle, I wiped away a tear from the corner of my eye.

     "Are you crying?" my granddaughter asked me. "I can never take you to the movies, grandpa, if you're always going to cry."