Warning: Grandma Will Get You What You Ask For

When we were young, my brother Eric was our family's Eeyore -- pessimistic, rather gloomy.  Experience taught him early on that if something bad was going to happen, it was going to happen to him.  Most of the time it wasn't even his fault, he just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, fall victim to a misunderstanding, or suffer some other stroke of random misfortune like putting his arm through a window or sliding down a wooden bench and getting a foot long splinter embedded in his thigh. 

One Saturday afternoon when I was thirteen and Eric was nine, our dad came home with two bikes that were given to him by a friend whose kids had outgrown them.  One was a sleek metallic blue five-speed with a banana seat and hand brakes, the other was a small turtle-shit green K-mart model with coaster brakes and a basket on the handlebars.  In retrospect, Dad should've decided beforehand which of us was going to get which bike.  Maybe he was hoping it would work out naturally, but whatever the case, Dad committed one of the Cardinal Sins of Fatherhood -- he asked both of us which bike we wanted.  The result was not a surprise.

"I want the blue one," I said.

"No, I want the blue one," said Eric.

After several minutes of arguing back and forth, firing phrases like "I'm older, I should get it," and "No fair, you always get your way," at each other, Dad decided to flip a coin.

"Chris, you call it," he said.

"Why doe HE get to call it?" asked Eric.

"Fine, you call it then," I said.

"Heads," said Eric.

Dad tossed the coin, caught it, and flipped it over on the back of his hand.

"It's tails.  Chris, you get to pick your bike."

I'd like to say that I took this golden opportunity to be the bigger person, to set aside my own selfish desires and accept the turtle-shit green K-Mart clunker so my little brother could have the bike of his dreams, to be a thoughtful and caring big brother who Eric would look up to for the rest of his life.

But I think we all know what really happened.

"I'll take the blue one."

Eric, predictably, pitched a hissy fit and ran upstairs to our bedroom.  I felt guilty for about eight seconds, then I hopped on my bike and rode to my friend Paul's house, shifting gears the whole way.

A similar incident had occurred a few years prior only instead of bicycles, the subject was Halloween costumes.  Most years, our Aunt Patti took me, Eric, and our youngest brother Bobby to FAO Schwarz in New York to pick out really cool outfits to wear for Trick or Treat.  One year I was an astronaut, another time Eric was a snazzy-looking Canadian Mountie, and Bobby spent Halloween 1975 gathering Tootsie Pops and Milky Ways decked out as a four-foot tall Spiderman.

One year, though, all we had to choose from was the family's Costumes of Halloweens Past, those that were recycled year to year and passed along as hand-me-downs.  Bobby was a tiger, I was Batman, and Eric was a clown.

Eric, however, had absolutely no interest in being a clown.  He griped, he grumbled, he pouted.  To this day, no one is sure why he was so against the idea, but it may have had something to do with the time we were all kidnapped by Giggles McYukyuk at one of our mom's Cub Scout leaders' meetings.

It gets worse.

Not only did Eric have to don the clown suit, Mom insisted on stuffing the front of the costume with balloons so he resembled one of those inflatable punching bags.  As a result, Eric is the only child in Halloween history to sulk his way through Trick or Treating.

It also led to the most hilarious picture in our family's scrapbook:

So yeah, Eric always seemed to be the one getting the bum deal, which makes what happened on Christmas 1979 all the more pitiful.

Every Christmas, we'd wake up at the crack of dawn, roust our parents out of bed and storm downstairs to unwrap our presents.  Once the gifts were opened, Mom would whip up a batch of Pillsbury orange danish and we'd spend the rest of the morning playing with our new toys.  In the early afternoon, we'd drive across town to our grandmother's house for round two.

Traditionally, Grandma would give us each a stocking full of candy and small toys, a couple mid-level gifts (clothes were the most common in this category), and finally, our one "big" present.  Grandma had a fairly close relationship with Santa Claus, so we always knew that the main gift was going to be something really cool.  One year I got a complete set of barbells, another time it was a guitar, and when I got a bit older, I received a top-of-the-line Texas Instruments digital watch.

The 70's were a much simpler time.

So anyway, on the Christmas That Will Live in Infamy, we'd plowed through the preliminary presents and were ready for the main event.  Family policy required us to open our presents one at a time, so we all got to see what the others had received.  Also, it made the process last longer than twelve seconds.

"Okay, who wants to open their big gift first?" asked Dad, clearly forgetting about the bicycle incident of a year earlier.

"I do!" said Bobby.

"Me!" I shouted.

"Here we go again," muttered Eric.

Since there were three of us involved in this decision coin-flipping wasn't an option, so Dad wrote down the numbers 1, 2, and 3 on slips of paper and put them into a bowl.  Eric drew first and pulled out the number 3.

"What a surprise, I'm last," he said.

Bobby had drawn the number 1, so he retrieved his gift from under the tree and ripped off the red and gold wrapping paper.

"Cool!  A Johnny Lightning racing set!  Thanks, Grandma!"  He reluctantly set the box aside so he could watch me unwrap my present.

Mine was wrapped in green paper with snowmen all over it.  I tore it open, to reveal the gift I'd been asking for since August.

"An Atari video game set with five game cartridges!" I said.  "Pacman, Adventure, Kaboom, bowling, and Tank Battle!  This is great, thanks, Grandma!"

By this point, Eric was practically bursting with anticipation.  Seeing Bobby and I hit the jackpot with Johnny Lightning and Atari, he just knew his present was going to be something spectacular.  Taking his time, he removed the silver paper from the box, revealing his special gift.  It was exactly what he'd asked for . . .

A few months earlier, Eric and Mom were watching television when a commercial came on advertising an innovative new product.  It was an item that Eric did indeed have a particular need for, even if it wasn't something most ten year olds would have any interest in.  As kind of a joke, he said to Mom, "Hey, look at that, maybe Santa can bring me one of those for Christmas."  Mom, however, didn't realize he was kidding, so she passed this information along to Grandma who went out and bought Eric the gift he was now looking at with a puzzled and somewhat somber expression on his face.

The Foot Fixer, by Clairol.

Think about this for a minute.  Here's a ten-year-old kid who's just seen his brothers open a brand-new video game system and a racing set where you can actually juice up the cars and they rip around the track on their own.  It's Christmas, the highlight of every kid's year, and what does he have to show for it?

A flippin' Foot Fixer.

All things considered, the kid handled it pretty damn well.  He didn't burst into tears, he didn't throw the thing across the living room, he didn't look at Grandma and ask, "What the hell is THIS?"  He just let out a pathetic sigh and said, "A Foot Fixer.  Thanks, Grandma."

He wanted to cry, though, you could tell.

Here's the rest of the story.

Eric had flat feet.  He was always quick to point this out, and he often used it as an excuse to get out of doing household chores, kind of like a ten-year-old on disability.

"Eric, it's your turn to bring in the trash cans."

"I can't, my feet hurt.  I have flat feet, you know."

"Eric, it's time to set the dinner table."

"My feet hurt, I'll do it later.  I have flat feet, you know."

Truthfully, he did suffer through bouts with foot pain from time to time, especially at night while trying to get to sleep.  So when he and Mom saw the Foot Fixer commercial on TV, he thought it might be something that would help.

But not as his Christmas present.

The real victim here, though, is our grandmother.  She genuinely believed that Eric wanted The Foot Fixer, and once she realized how disappointed the poor kid was, that it was all a big mistake, she felt terrible.  I don't recall what happened in the aftermath, but I'm sure it involved taking Eric to Toys R Us and letting him pick out whatever he wanted.

But to be honest about it, The Foot Fixer wasn't a total loss.  If you filled it up with water and plugged it in, the resulting vibrations caused a tsunami that was great for capsizing our toy battleships.


Note: In no way is Grandma at fault for this.  She was absolutely the kindest, most thoughtful, and most wonderful human being to ever grace the planet.  Her role in the Foot Fixer Incident of 1979 was simply to provide her grandsons with whatever they asked for.  The misunderstanding was absolutely not on her.  No, the blame lies somewhere else entirely.

I'm looking at YOU, Mom. 


d

Revenge of the Babysat

"This is stupid, it isn't even dark outside yet," my brother Eric said as he caught the tennis ball that I'd tossed to him from my bed. He was on the top bunk, with our brother Bobby pouting down below.

I caught the return throw. "I know. Can she really send us to bed this early?"

We were being baby-sat by our 16 year-old neighbor, Nancy. In a fit of irrational, most likely hormonal rage, she'd banished us to our room without probable cause. We hadn't been fighting, weren't making excessive noise, nothing. Yet at the ridiculous hour of 8:00 pm, here we were. Our friends were still playing touch football in the street, for Chrissakes.

I tossed the ball back to Eric.The doorbell rang downstairs, and Nancy answered it. We heard unfamiliar voices, so we assumed that she had invited a couple of her friends over to our house. Bottles clanking, music playing, it sounded like they were getting a party started! Nancy was the Cat in the Hat, and Thing One and Thing Two had just showed up. Mom and Dad could not possibly have approved this. Teenage subterfuge, right here in our own living room. We had to do something.

If we'd been a few years older, we probably would've come up with a more diabolical plan. But at the ages of 11, 8, and 7, this is the best we could do:

I got my basketball from the closet and gave it to Eric, still on the top bunk. As I held the door to our room slightly ajar, he balanced the basketball top, resting it between the door and the frame.

The old "Booby Trap the Door" trick.

"How do we get her to come up here?" Bobby asked.

"Simple," I said. "You guys pretend you're fighting about something."

They played it to perfection.

"Get off me, you jerk!"

"That's mine! Give it back or I'll punch you again!"

"STOP IT, ERIC! YOU'RE HURTING ME!"

"Quit crying, ya little baby!"

Jeez, isn't she coming yet?

"Quit it, you guys!" I yelled. "We're gonna get in trouble!"

"He's choking me, get him off!"

Finally, Nancy couldn't ignore us any longer. She stomped up the stairs. We heard her coming down the hall.

She was right outside the door.

"What the hell are you guys do-"

KA-BONK!

Holy crap, it worked to perfection. The ball conked her on top of her dome, knocking her glasses askew. Her face contorted in pissed off, Kathy-Bates-as-Annie-Wilkes-like rage.

And then Bobby doused her with the glass of water.

Nancy was ill-prepared for our pre-pubescent wiles. The combination of mild pain, crooked glasses, and freshly-soaked zitface left her momentarily speechless. Without comment, she stormed out of our room and went back downstairs.

That's what you get, you skanky wench! Send us to bed early? Have a party in our house? We think NOT. Victory was ours.

Temporarily. For two hours, to be precise.

At around ten o'clock, after Nancy had sent Thing One and Thing Two home, our parents returned. We heard angry-sounding murmurs from downstairs. The snitch was ratting us out. A whuppin' was coming our way, no doubt about it.

Bobby scurried over to the toy box and found my kneepads. He slipped them into the butt of his pajama pants, makeshift protection against the spanking-yet-to-come.

Let's pause here for a second so I can clarify something. Our parents never "beat" us, per se. We did, however, earn the occasional smack, thump, swat, spank, or backhand across the ass. Every once in a while, our mom would even find one of our Hot Wheels tracks to do the deed. Let me tell you, there's nothing worse than getting walloped with your own toys.

So anyway, we braced for the incoming wrath o' Dad. He pushed the door open.

"Nancy told us what you guys did. That is not acceptable." He didn't raise his voice at all. Somehow, that made it worse.

"But Dad! She was-"

"I don't want to hear it. She was very upset, and you broke her glasses. And who hit her with the water?"

Bobby giggled from under his blankets.

"Well, let's get this over with," said Dad. I was first up on Your Hit Parade.

SWAT! SWAT!

Dad had a rule. We got spanked until we cried. Two swats, and I was blubbering like a colicky infant.

He walked across the room. Eric fired off a pre-emptive cry of anticipation, but it didn't help. Dad had apparently decided upon a two-swat minimum.

SWAT! SWAT!

And then came Bobby's turn.

THUD! THUD!

Bobby tried to stifle a chuckle.

THUD! THUD! THUD! THUD!

"What's in your pants?" Dad asked.

Bobby was laughing uncontrollably now. Clearly, he lacked foresight.

Dad grabbed the back of Bobby's pajama bottoms, giving him a sort of "mini-wedgie". He reached in, grabbed the kneepads, and flung them into the corner.

SWAT! SWAT! SWAT! SWAT!

Bobby cried.

Dad walked out, turned off our light as he went, and left us alone with our diminishing sobs and whimpers. Eventually, all was quiet on the bedroom front.

"You guys okay?" I asked.

"Yeah."

"Uh huh."

"That was kinda worth it, though, right?"

"Did you see how her glasses were all crooked after she got hit with the ball?"

We laughed till we fell asleep.

d

When in Doubt, Lie

As parents, we've seen it all.  Crayon scribbles on the living room wall.  Muddy footprints on the deep pile carpet.  Chocolaty smudges on the furniture proving that, despite claims to the contrary, MnM's do indeed melt in your hand.  Finding the perpetrator of such kiddie-crimes is usually pretty easy, especially if you only have one kid.  But I've always been somewhat amazed that, even in the face of irrefutable evidence, 98.3% of all children between the ages of two and eighteen will always give the lie a chance.

It was a Saturday morning, my son Ryan was not quite three.  I heard him tooling around in the living room, so I stumbled out of bed to see what he was up to and maybe fix us both a healthy breakfast of Cap'n Crunch and brown sugar cinnamon Poptarts.  When I got to the living room, I found him sitting on the coffee table, magic markers strewn about the carpet, looking like he was auditioning for Tatted Toddlers, inked to the elbows.

Okay, I'll admit it, I had to chuckle.  But then, putting on the "stern dad" face, I asked, "Ryan, how did your arms get like that?"

He looked me straight in the eye and said, "I didn't do it."

I'll say it again, the boy was TWO YEARS OLD.  So I have to wonder, at what age do children first realize that lying is an option?  Is it a survival instinct that they're born with?  Fight, flight, or lie your ass off?  Certainly they don't learn it from their parents.  We'd never lie to our children about anything, right?

Of course we would.  And the exact degree of bullshit varies depending upon the age of the child.  For example, up until the age of five, we lie to them like this:

"I know he might look a little different, but trust me, that's the same goldfish."

Not too long after the magic marker incident, Ryan and I were at a Fall Carnival at his preschool.  They had all sorts of games and activities for the kids.  Ryan wanted to try the traditional "throw the ping-pong ball into the bowl and win the goldfish."  Sure enough, on about his fifth try, he succeeded, making us the proud owners of "Mr. Krinklebine," the slightly unhealthy-looking feeder fish.  We stopped by the pet store on the way home, and spent about thirty bucks on a bigger bowl, fish food, gravel, and the requisite ceramic scuba diver.  Two nights later, Mr. Krinklebine was floating.  Like any good parent, I went to the pet store and bought a new fish, flushed Mr. K., substituted the impostor, and all was well.  Over the next seven years, there were about twelve different Mr. Krinklebines.  Finally, when Ryan was about ten, he was the one to discover the body.  I explained the circle of life, and we gave him a dignified burial at sea.

There's a pretty funny footnote to this story.  Ryan never caught on.  Not too long ago, when he was about sixteen, he was reminiscing about the pets we've had.  "Hey, Dad, remember Mr. Krinklebine?  Man, that fish lived a long time, what, about eight years?"

I laughed my ass off.

"What's so funny?" he asked.

"Um, I hate to break this to you now, but there were about a dozen of him."

"What?  You lied to me about my goldfish?"

Absolutely.

As the kids get a bit older, we have to step up our game.  They're a little tougher to fool, but it can still be done.  Let's take a look at one of the classics: 

"Being a kid was a lot harder when I was your age."

Okay, sure, kids today have all sorts of conveniences that we never had.  Cell phones, the Internet, high-tech video games.  But let's be honest, it's not like our generation grew up in the 1850's, waking up at 4:30 in the morning to chop wood for the stove and slop the hogs.  We weren't shearing any sheep in 1977, that's for damn sure.  No, the fact is my childhood was pretty candyass.  I woke up at 7:30 in the morning, enjoyed a healthy breakfast of Lucky Charms and frosted strawberry Poptarts, and walked to school in seasonably-predictable weather wearing a sturdy pair of Keds.  If it was uphill at all, we didn't really notice.  On the rare occasions we were asked to do manual labor, like shoveling snow or raking leaves, we expected (and often received) a reasonable allowance.

And we sure as hell never had to worry about some cyber-bully taking a picture of us in the locker room and posting it on his Facebook page.  Our bullies were more traditional, goons like Danny Esposito who would wait for you after class just to give you a power wedgie that you were picking out of your butt crack all through fifth grade.  Not only that, the bastard would stalk you every day in the lunchroom, and swipe your Snack Pack chocolate pudding that your mom bought especially for you because she knew it was your favorite, but you never got to eat it, not once, because Esposito friggin' took it.  And then, in sixth grade, when you were giving your oral report on the Egyptian pyramids, he accidentally (but not really) dropped his social studies book on top of your Great Pyramid, the one that took you six hours and five hundred sugar cubes to make, and had to beg your mom to drive you to school that day so you didn't drop it while you walked.

That's all hypothetical, of course.

Once our kids hit the teenage years, successfully putting one over on them becomes darn near impossible.   Not only do our kids become insufferable lunatics, they also develop a healthy skepticism of our every word.  So their questions demand a much more sophisticated level of deception. 

"Of course not!  I never touched alcohol until I was 21."
"Of course not!  I never had sex with anyone until I was married to your mother/father."
"Of course not!  I have never tried any kind of drugs."

Answering our teenagers' questions about the things we did at their age always presents a dilemma.  On the one hand we want to be honest, in the hopes that they'll be honest in return, allowing us to have open dialogue about the dangers of alcohol, drug use, and sexual promiscuity.  But what if they use our history against us?  Maybe they'll think, "Well, my dad shot heroin, guzzled tequila and nailed an endless parade of disease-ridden hookers and he didn't turn out that screwed up," and see it as permission to experiment with those very things.  "You did those things, so why can't I?" they'll say, at least, that's what we're afraid of.

So we lie.  And try to fool our teenagers into thinking that we were tee-totaling virgins until the age of thirty.

Look, I'm not condoning dishonesty.  Sure, we have to take a few strategic liberties from time to time, but for the most part, as the cliche says, "honesty is the best policy."  We're better off teaching our kids to take responsibility for their actions and to be forthright when explaining their misbehavior.

I remember one time when I was about twelve, my brothers and I were goofing around in the backyard.  We set up a few tin cans on the porch, and tried to knock them over with rocks.  On my second or third shot, I winged one a bit too hard and shattered the kitchen window.  Naturally, I pointed the finger of guilt at my brother Eric, who adamantly declared his innocence.  In an effort to get to the truth, my dad put his hand on my shoulder, looked me in the eye and said, "If you just tell me the truth, you won't get in trouble."

Which was, of course, a lie.

s

The Art of Camping in the Rain

I was hanging out with my father not too long ago, reminiscing about some of the vacations we took when I was a kid, and I happened to mention a couple of our camping trips.  "You know, Dad," I said, "those trips to Bryce Canyon and Mesa Verde were great.  I remember them as being a lot of fun."

"What are you talking about?" he asked.  "You hated camping, always griping about the weather, the bugs, setting up the tent . . . "

I'm sure he's right, but now that I'm older, I've really come to appreciate the chilly nights in the wilderness, eating cold Dinty Moore beef stew, burning marshmallows on an open fire, and spraying each other with industrial-strength OFF! to keep the mosquitoes at bay.

Ah, memories.

We did a lot of camping at local state parks in Jersey, Voorhees and Hacklebarney in particular, but it was our two-week summer trips that provided the memories that have lasted a lifetime.  Here are a few of my favorites.

ZION NATIONAL PARK, UTAH
SUMMER 1976

As the sun broke through the clouds that fine Utah morning, my eight year-old brother Eric and I were sitting at the picnic table doing Mad Libs.

"Okay, I need an adjective," I said.

"Horse."

"That's a noun.  An adjective's a describing word, like 'big' or 'little'."

"Little."

"Well, that's just an example, you can pick a funnier one if you want."

"Disgusting."

"Okay, good."  I wrote it down in the Mad Libs book.  As I was writing, Eric reached into the Dunkin' Donuts box that had been left on the table overnight.  He grabbed a jelly-filled (his favorite), and took a bite.  As he chewed, I noticed a strange expression creep across his face, a combination of confusion and panic.  He looked at me, then down at the donut he was holding.

That's when it hit him.

Crawling out of the jelly hole came a swarm of tiny red fire ants.  In the meantime, their semi-chewed comrades scurried around inside my brother's mouth looking for an escape route, which Eric provided for them in the form of horrified gagging, spitting, and puking.

"Okay," I said, "Now I need a plural noun."

MESA VERDE NATIONAL PARK, COLORADO
SUMMER 1977

As you may remember from a story of mine involving the game Simon, my father is not a bluffer.  He did not make idle threats.  When he said, "If I have to come up there one more time, someone's not going to be sitting down for a week," we knew he meant business and we shut the hell up and went to sleep.  So anyway, one summer we were camping at Mesa Verde National Park, and Mom and Dad decided to take us across the campground to listen to an Indian guide tell stories by the fire.  Eric, however, wasn't all that excited about going so he basically whined the whole way.  Before long, Dad said, "Eric, if you don't quit complaining I'm going to pull the van over and you can walk back to the campsite."

Well, Eric didn't quit complaining.

As advertised, Dad pulled the van over to the side of the road and waited, presumably for Eric to say something like, "I'm sorry, dear father, I will never again express my reluctance to join the family for a fun-filled evening of Indian stories."

But that's not what happened.  What happened was, Eric decided to call Dad's bluff.  When the van came to a stop, Eric simply opened the sliding door, hopped out, and headed back to the campsite.  Actually, he was going the wrong way, but that became a moot point almost immediately.

I don't know how he did it, but in one fluid motion, Dad shut off the engine, climbed out of the driver's seat, circled the van, removed his belt, and served Eric a healthy portion of attitude adjustment.

We then proceeded to the campfire and listened to the Indians' fascinating legends.  Most of us sat on wooden benches, but Eric decided he'd rather stand.

BRYCE CANYON, UTAH
SUMMER 1974

This was the year my youngest brother Bobby had really long, curly blond hair.  My Dad got so tired of people saying, "What a cute little girl you have," that he actually spelled out the words I AM A BOY in black electrical tape on the back of Bobby's jacket.  A haircut might've been more practical, but I wasn't going to tell my Dad that.


HIGH POINT STATE PARK, NEW JERSEY
SUMMER, 1978

Our campsite that year was beautiful, lots of trees and it was set right on a lake.  We spent a lot of time fishing, mostly catching and releasing the same five sunfish.  One of those stupid bastards had about thirty-five holes in his upper lip.  But there was one fish, who we dubbed "Tuffy", that wouldn't go for the bait.  We tried everything; worms, bread, Kraft American Cheese.  Eventually, Eric was able to catch him by snagging the hook in his gills.

VARIOUS POINTS IN NEW ENGLAND AND EASTERN CANADA
SUMMER, 1975

The trip up to Nova Scotia was by far the most memorable of our family camping expeditions, and by "memorable" I of course mean "left deep scars that will probably never heal."  To begin with, it rained every day.  Now, most of the time when someone makes a statement like that, what they really mean is "it rained an awful lot."  It's an exaggeration, like when you say, "Diane is such a slut she nailed every guy in Kappa Gamma Phi," you just mean she's a whore who slept with a lot of guys, not literally everyone.  But rest assured, when I say "it rained every day," I mean that it rained every single fucking day.  For two weeks.

Rainy weather and camping don't really mix well.  You can't build a fire, and the muddy terrain leaves the tent stakes clinging desperately for some sort of stability.  It's too wet to do anything fun other than sit around in the tent playing checkers and doing more Mad Libs which gets really damn old after, oh, three hours.

There were other problems.  Somewhere in a town called (and I'm not making this up) Pugwash, we had car problems.  So Dad took me on a "side excursion" to the Pugwash Pep Boys  to pick up a couple air shocks.  We watched in amusement as Dad installed the new shocks in the pouring rain.  I think that was also the night my parents finally said "the hell with it" and booked us a room at a motel, which was really a series of cabins.  Here's some irony for you -- the cabins did not have running water.

Finally, around Day 12, the rain stopped for a couple hours and the sun peeked out from behind the clouds.  Naturally, my brothers and I begged our parents to let us go swimming in the lake.  My mom started to talk us out of it (the temperature was in the low 50's), but after we bitched and whined for fifteen minutes, my dad said something like, "ah, the hell with it, let 'em go in."

So we put on our swim trunks and waded in.  It was when I got in up to my knees that I realized that the water was about 33 degrees.  I immediately walked back to the gravelly beach, and it felt like my ankles were broken.  My brothers didn't last any longer.  My dad, however, was convinced that his sons were just a bunch of wimps, so he said something like, "you guys are just a bunch of wimps" and ran into the water.

Here's the beauty of the situation.  Since Dad had just called us wimps, he couldn't just dart back out of the water, although the look on his face indicated that he wanted to do just that.  He declared, "It's r-r-r-r-realy not s-s-s-s-so bad once y-y-you get used t-t-t-to it."

I've never seen my mom look so smug.

So Dad toughed it out for a couple minutes, and just before hypothermia set in he came ashore, having acquired a bright pink hue.  He quickly toweled off and wrapped himself in a warm blanket.

It immediately started raining again.


h

I Left My Shaving Cream in L.A. International Airport

Theresa and I decided to do something different this Valentines' Day, so we abandoned the tired old cliches such as heart-shaped boxes of candy and Hallmark cards in favor of a relaxing four-day weekend in San Francisco.

We arrived at Los Angeles International Airport a couple hours early, on the off chance that our flight was going to depart on time.  We got our boarding passes, and proceeded to the security checkpoint.  My carry-on was the lucky winner of a more thorough inspection because I was bringing along "Wheezer," my CPAP machine.  I have no problem with the extra scrutiny, because safety is the first priority and you never know when Al-Qaida will start disguising bombs as sleep-apnea treatments.  During the examination of my bag, the TSA officer also confiscated my shaving cream, which resembled a can of plastic explosive or something.

Here's the funny part.  I don't mean "ha-ha" funny, like Sarah Palin getting hit by a bus, this is more like "how the hell does this happen in post-9/11 America" funny.  Later on, when we got to our hotel, Theresa discovered that she'd left her three-inch locking blade knife in her purse rather than in the checked baggage.  That's right, folks, the knife made it through the security checkpoint undetected.  Apparently, TSA believes that a woman in possession of a knife poses less of a threat than a 6'3" guy wielding a can of Barbasol.  That, my friends, is profiling and I strenuously object.

No trip to the L.A. airport would be complete without a celebrity sighting.  At our gate, I saw an old lady that used to be in commercials.  You guessed it, it was the corpse of Margaret Hamilton!

Not really.  I still can't remember her name, or the commercials she starred in, but believe me when I tell you if you saw her, you'd immediately point and call out, "HEY!  IT'S THAT LADY FROM THAT COMMERCIAL!"  Actually, it's been driving me batty that I can't remember what she was in.  I've run every Google search I can think of, but it's no use.  It wasn't Josephine the Plumber, and it wasn't Mother Nature.  If you could help me out, I'd be eternally grateful or at least be able to sleep at night.

So anyway, our flight out of Los Angeles was, in theory, scheduled to leave at 3:55 but here's a big surprise -- we were delayed.  At about 3:00, the following announcement came over the loudspeaker:

"Flight 1582 to San Francisco is being delayed until 4:55.  However, do not leave the gate area, as the flight may actually depart prior to that time, or even at the originally scheduled departure time.  There is also the possibility that the flight will have to be delayed further."

Did you get that?  Either the flight was going to be on-time, delayed, or delayed even further.  Why not just make the announcement, "We are pretty sure that flight 1582 will be departing at some point in the future."

We left shortly after 5:00.

We arrived in San Francisco without incident, which is to say "late, tired, and hungry" and took a cab to the hotel.  We stayed at the Hyatt Fisherman's Wharf, which I highly recommend to any of you who may be traveling to the Bay Area.  Since we hadn't eaten, we decided to walk down to the wharf, where we had dinner at a very nice restaurant called Neptune's Palace.  I had the shrimp alfredo, which was delicious.  However, when I asked for a glass of water, the waitress informed me that they were having a problem with their plumbing so all the water was, and I quote, "yellow".  I told her to forget about the water, and I spent the rest of the meal trying not to think about where the carbonated water in my Diet Coke had come from.

We slept in on Saturday, and then took the cable car to Chinatown for lunch.  For those of you who have never been to San Francisco, I'd like to point out that the city's landscape resembles Magic Mountain's famous roller coaster "Colossus."  So we got off the cable car and walked down Clay Street, and by that I don't mean that we walked in a certain direction on Clay Street, I mean that we walked, literally, DOWN Clay Street at approximately a 70-degree angle.

We ate at a lovely place called The Oriental Pearl.  During our meal, we noticed two women at the table next to us enjoying an appetizer consisting of, as far as I could tell, eyeballs.  At another table, there was a family who really should've opted for a more suitable restaurant like, say, McDonald's.  The four-year old boy, who clearly did not possess an "inside voice," insisted on using his chopsticks as drum sticks and his chair as a jungle gym.  This continued until his father gave him his cell phone so Junior could talk to, I'm guessing, his grandmother.  Obviously, I couldn't hear Grandma's end of the conversation, but everything she said prompted Junior to reply, "I'M EATING CHICKEN!"

We finished our lunch, and I must tell you the food was outstanding, and walked UP Clay Street to catch another cable car.  We spent the rest of the afternoon shopping, sight-seeing, and relaxing back at the hotel.  That evening, we went to a comedy club called Punchline, and saw the hilarious Dana Gould.

Sunday morning, we had brunch with my brother Eric and his girlfriend, who live in the Haight-Ashbury area of San Francisco.  We ate at Crepes on Cole which, despite its "hole in the wall" atmosphere (or maybe because of it), turned out to be our most enjoyable dining experience of the weekend (no disrespect toward Neptune's Place or The Oriental Pearl intended).

The rest of our trip included a walk down Lombard Street (also known as "the world's crookedest street"), a bay cruise that took us around Alcatraz and under the Golden Gate Bridge, and a visit to the Aquarium of the Bay.

MOMENTARY DIGRESSION

I don't know who came up with the idea of serving clam chowder in a bowl made of sourdough bread, but he is a genius and should receive a Nobel Prize.

END OF MOMENTARY DIGRESSION.

On Monday we took a cab to the airport two hours early, in the foolishly-optimistic hope that our flight would leave on time.  It didn't, of course, so we sat around the airport reading and partaking of over-priced snack foods.

All in all, Theresa and I had a fantastic weekend, and we'll definitely be returning to the City by the Bay in the near future.  And next time, I'll remember not to pack my suspicious can of shaving cream in my carry-on bag.

Brotherly Pranks, Part Two: April Fool's Day

April Fool's Day, 1978.  It was a Saturday.

I was in the kitchen preparing my usual breakfast -- chocolate fudge Pop Tarts and Nestle's Quik.  I was mixing in another spoonful of the chocolate powder when my brother Eric came in and opened the refrigerator.  He had a smirk on his face like he was up to something.

He took out a bottle of Heinz catsup.  Or if you prefer, ketchup.  I've never been sure of the official spelling but, either way, I'm pretty sure you know what I'm talking about.

I got a Crazy Straw from the cabinet, stuck it in my chocolate milk, and took a sip. "What are you doing with that catsup?" I asked.

"Playing an April Fool's joke on Mom," replied Eric.

He took off the cap off the catsup bottle and applied a rather large glob on the palm of his left hand.  He distributed it between his fingers, on the back of his hand, and let it ooze down his wrist and forearm.  It looked like, to quote Lenny Small, "he got his hand caught in a machine."[1] 

"So, what's your plan?" I asked.

"I'm gonna go around front and come running inside, acting like I cut myself."

"I can tell you right now that Mom is NOT gonna think that's funny."

"It's gonna be great.  Just watch."

Eric was only nine years old at the time, while I was thirteen.  While Eric was completely oblivious to the outright panic he was about to inspire in our mother, I knew exactly what was going to happen.  If I were a thoughtful, well-meaning brother, I would have calmly explained the situation to him, and talked him out of his ill-advised prank.  

But c'mon, I had to see this for myself.

Mom was sitting in the living room, watching television and doing needle point.  She reminded me of a deer standing peacefully in the woods, not realizing that a hunter was about to blow his freakin' head off.  Meanwhile, Eric went out the back door and walked around the side of the house.  From my vantage point in the kitchen, I watched him stagger up the front steps, screaming in mortal agony.

"MOM!  MOM!  HELP!" 

Detailed analysis of the Zapruder film[2] reveals the following: 

Frame 112: Eric is opening the front door with his "good" hand, holding the "bloody" hand in the air.

Frame 124: Eric has entered the living room, Mom has clearly reacted to the situation and has just released her needlepoint.

Frame 131: The expression on Eric's face has begun to change.  His mouth remains open in a scream, but his eyes convey just a bit of humor.

Frame 140: Eric is clearly laughing.  Mom has a puzzled look on her face.  She hasn't figured out the joke yet.

Frame 150: Eric seems to be speaking, eyes aglow with mischief.  An eyewitness later confirmed that Eric was shouting the phrase, "APRIL FOOL!"[3] 

Frame 152: Eric's lips are puckered, pronouncing the "oo" in "fool".  Mom's arm is in full swing, open hand headed for Eric's right cheek. 

Frames 154-170: Mom slaps Eric firmly.  Eric's head is seen clearly snapping back . . . and to the left. 

In the aftermath, Eric tried to explain that it was only a joke, that he didn't mean to scare our poor, dear mother, and she sort of forgave him.  However, when she noticed me standing in the kitchen laughing my ass off, she turned her attention my way.

"Did you know he was going to do this?" she asked.

What to do, what to do?  I figured that if I told her the truth, she'd play the "you're the older brother, you should have known it was going to upset me" card and I'd get in trouble.  But if I lied, Eric was sure to seize the opportunity to rat me out and deflect the blame from him.  At that point it would be my word against his, and his bright blue puppy dog eyes and pudgy cheeks gave him a clear advantage.  Then I'd get in trouble for allowing it to happen and then lying about it.  I opted for the lesser of two evils.

"Yeah, I knew about it but I told him not to!  I knew you'd get mad, but he didn't listen!"

Mom looked at my brother.  "Eric, is that true?  Did he try to stop you?"

Eric batted his eyes (still teary), quivered his lower lip and said, "No, Mommy.  He told me to do it in the first place.  I didn't want to but he made me."  I think it was the cheeks that sealed my fate.

I pleaded my case, but Mom was still feeling the residual effects of her initial panic.  This, combined with the guilt she felt for swatting my "innocent" little brother, inspired her to sentence me to the usual household punishment.

The Hot Wheels track.[4]

[1] It's from Of Mice and Men.  Read a book, people.
[2] Okay, you caught me.  There's no sequel to the Zapruder film capturing my brother's joke on Mom.  It's just a comedic device I'm using here.  To be perfectly honest about it, they did the same thing on "Seinfeld" when Kramer got spit on by Mets first baseman Keith Hernandez.  But the hell with it, Larry David can kiss my ass. 
[3] Actually, he only made it as far as "April Foo..." 
[4] As I wrote about in a piece entitled "The Ghost of Christmas Presents", orange Hot Wheels tracks were my mom's disciplinary weapon of choice.