Shaggy Dog / Friendly Fire

In which our Hero finds Arthur’s version of a battle-cry to be entirely apropos

So much for my planned OD entry deathmarch. The big challenge is that one of the things on my mind is a family situation that’s deeply frustrating and deeply sad and too big every time I’ve tried to take it on. But in the mean time, I guess I can fill the silence with some more trivia.

Last night, my lady shared a picture of a gadget her mother had acquired. The picture loaded on my screen and I choked on my breathe with startled laughter. Because my mom would love it. And I’d hate it as one more piece of encrusting kitsch that accumulates in my house like an artifical coral.

As I frequently say, I come by my crazy honestly. Certainly my mother has provided for me. But then my father won’t allow me to ignore his contribution…

I got home from work one evening last week, driving myself as I so rarely do. We have a two car garage, with one bay free for cars, and that’s where I park. My parents park on the driveway. Every once in a while, a family friend uses my parents as their airport limo service, so just as Hollywood was away for three weeks, we had a third car on the drive way, resulting in an ongoing game of musical cars as we shuffled and shuttled to allow the necessary vehicle onto the street.

But last week, the unwanted guest was gone, and the driveway was clear. Which is why I was baffled to find that my father had elected, when presented with an empty driveway, to block the side that would provide me access to the garage. Which turned out to be far from the oddest point of the night.

Because when I went in to scold him (by which I mean ask if he wanted me to shuffle things or just leave my car on the driveway for now) he stopped me.

“You know your uncle Jack has a brother back Home?” he started, smiling.

“You know the two of them have another brother who is standing in front of me?” I countered, but my father continued to ignore that detail.

“Well, that brother has a wife,” he continued, smiling.

“Okay,” I said.

“And that wife has a brother.”

“Okay”

“And that brother has a kid.”

“And?”

“And that kid is working in the city.”

“And?”

“And his parents are visiting for a while,” he concluded.

I’m sure my face was bewildered, because what I asked him was, “Why couldn’t you just say Aunt Rose’s brother is town instead of all of that?”

He didn’t respond, probably because he was way too busy being pleased with himself and the cleverness of his delivery. Then again, maybe it was clever, since I’m mostly grumpy when I find out we’re getting unplanned visitors.

By the rules of family, we have an obligation to host them. They have a lesser obligation to pay their respects. On the plus side, they’re here for a month so there was a little bit of play in terms of just when we had to deal with them.

Which is how I came home to discover they were due to arrive in an hour or so. (Rude word here!)

I was mostly antisocial but had dinner with them, and honestly it was more fun than I could have expected. The conversation was generally interesting, they know family news so I got to hear updates. And the food was better than average and I already like my mother’s cooking.

On the other hand, everybody else was speaking another language that I understand but speak poorly. So I wasn’t talking much and I don’t know the places and quickly fell out of the conversation.

At one point during dinner, we were joking about how their son was effectively turning on the TV to entertain his parents before leaving them at home for a day at work. My father said, “same thing here” and pointed out “his” ipad. I interrupted and said, “No, hang on, I bought that for my mother!” Then he went and pulled out my new toy, a Nerf Disc Blaster, to show to the group. I’m not embarrassed (should I be?), and added, “And I bought that for me!”

Except my dad seems to think the Nerf Blaster is kind of neat. Because he decided to demonstrate it, by firing into the wall. The Nerf Disc Blaster, you will be unsurprised to note, Gentle Reader, blasts plastic discs with great energy, and the discs bounce.

So he stood on one side of the room and fired into the wall. And jerked my head out of the way as it ricocheted past me. I was nearly shot by my father during a dinner party! At least he didnt’ hit a guest, I suppose.