Welcome to our Friday night lagniappe... fay dodo...
Okay, I'm all out. Call it what you want, but pull up a chair, treat us to some sounds if you like, and enjoy the fine company.
There's something resembling a diary below, but you can just skip it, and say hi in the comments. ;)
Lacking anything else witty to talk about, I figured I'd share a few family stories... since my family is innately funny. Hope you guys think so, too.
I've told some of these stories before, others I think have not seen Kos pages before. Skip around, or skip 'em altogether. Or (my personal preference) give us some funny stories from your own family.
*****
Most fights in my family (and there were no shortage of those) ended with a joke. If you could make the person you were arguing with laugh, all was well.
Late Night Request
So in between reading in bed one night, my folks were fighting. My father had committed, yet again, his most common indiscretion: he was a very warm man, with lots of friends, and couldn't stop himself from wanting to spend time with them... so he'd invite them to dinner. And forget the rest of the equation: you, know... the part where he informed his wife so as to give her plenty of advance time for planning and execution. Not to mention actual cooking. There were several times folks actually showed up at the door before he remembered he'd invited them. Other things may have infuriated her as much, but nothing surpassed being put on the spot like that.
So the argument went on in between the silent reading of each of their books. She'd think of another thing to say (undoubtedly in a vain attempt to drive the point home once and for all), and he'd listen and -- in this one case (it was not always thus) -- apologize yet again.
After the forth or fifth or sixth or eighteenth "and another thing," he turned to her earnestly and said, "What do you want me to do? I've apologized. I'm really sorry. It won't happen again. What more do you want from me?"
Knowing she'd gone over the line, but still seething, my mother turned to him and said the only thing she could think of: "I want you to stick your head in the ground and wave your ass in the air."
And the fight was over.
On the Other Hand...
My father traveled a lot on assignment, and my mother was always dropping him off and picking him up from airports. Generally, she was at the proper gate to welcome him home, but this time they'd switched gates at the last minute, and she was trying to find the right one.
Having spotted her unnoticed from the sidelines, my father sidled up behind her and said, in a French accent, trying to disguise his voice, "Come with me to the Casbah, and I will make love to you like you have never been made love to before."
My mother, not fooled for a moment, turned around, and in her best gum-chewing Brooklyn accent replied, "No shit?"
Smart Thinking
My eldest cousin was a daredevil kid. And, as it happened, my aunt and uncle and their three kids lived at the bottom of an insanely steep hill.
One day when he was ten, my aunt came home about five minutes earlier than expected. She pulled into the driveway, and spotted my cousin riding his bicycle down the hill at breakneck speed while standing on the seat.
She knew, in an instant, that if she screamed at him to get down this very instant, he'd likely fall off. By the same token, if he happened to spot her home early, he'd likely fall off. And yet, if she didn't stop him... he'd likely fall off. After all, he was standing on the seat. Not much steering ability there. Faced with this untenable situation, she said to herself, "I'm not home yet."
She put her key into the lock, and went inside.
Four-and-a-half minutes later, my cousin came in. "Hi, Mom," he said to her.
"Hi!" she answered, as if nothing were wrong.
How Great Thou Aunt
I had five great-aunts. Each crazier than the other, and none quite as insane as my grandmother -- but she's a whole diary unto herself. Probably for "What's Your Fucking Problem."
They all had wicked senses of humor. I don't mean wicked as in smart, sharp, witty. I mean wicked, as in mean.
When they were kids, my mother and her cousin came into one aunt's kitchen one day after playing in the snow for hours. They were freezing cold and blue-lipped. My great-aunt offered them freshly made hot chocolate in a couple of those delicate china cups with the thin little handles that look like they couldn't hold the weight of a mosquito. But my mother and her cousin didn't care -- they couldn't wait to get some of that warm comfort into them. Just as the two of them raised the cups to their lips about to take their first sip, my great-aunt said, "Oh, be careful with those cups -- I just glued the handles."
Now that's mean.
That Dmitri Was A Lifesaver
My father and I could get into fights without even trying. But as I grew into adulthood, and he approached the end of his life, we learned to try not to instead.
One day we were failing miserably. I can't remember what the near-fight was about -- most likely something political. Generally we were in total agreement on that subject, but when there was an issue on which we disagreed, things could get mighty tense.
I was visiting them for a weekend, and my mother had gone out for several hours -- more than enough time for my father and I to come perilously close to fisticuffs over whatever it was we disagreed on. He wasn't well, and I wasn't in the mood to fight, but we seemed locked into imminent dubious battle.
Unbeknownst to us, my mother was at that time driving home, listening to NPR play the music of a composer whose orchestral works she knew and disliked, but whose chamber music she was hearing for the first time.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I remember I'd stood up to make a point -- very likely a warning that we drop the subject...
...When my mother burst through the front door, whipping off her scarf and opening her coat, an expression of ecstasy on her face.
"You know," she said in awe, "Shostakovitch was a genius."
I couldn't help it: I saw the only way out of my predicament. I deadpanned with perfectly feigned surprise, "You know, Dad and I were just discussing that very thing!"
A Financial Matter
My Cockney father grew up in the slums of London, and while he'd long ago (deliberately) lost his accent, he could seamlessly elide into it when the occasion called for it. Similarly, he was a gentle soul, who'd never resort to violence against his fellow man... but he could talk a good game when he had to.
We were visiting my sister and brother-in-law in Vermont one Thanksgiving, and driving around to some junk shops in search of treasures. My sister saw something she wanted, and asked my brother-in-law for the ten bucks to pay for it.
Well, he didn't want it, and certainly didn't want to pay for it. There followed a brief verbal skirmish over the ten bucks and the item in question, when my father, from the front seat, without turning around, said in a tough Cockney voice, "Give her the money, Lad, or I'll lay ya low."
My sister got the ten bucks.
Which tale brings to mind a story not of my family, but rather of one of the infamous junk shops up there.
Dude and Harry's Palace of Antiquities
Around forty years ago, we were in the above-mentioned junk shop. Dude and Harry were brothers of indeterminate but apparently advanced years. They lived in a huge run-down house off a dirt road off a back road off a byway. You had to know what you were looking for to find them.
And the place was full of treasures and... other things. Many animals, for instance, almost all of them mauled in one way or another: cats with missing eyes and ears, a dog with three legs and a hideous scar where the amputation was clearly done with a chainsaw (okay, not with a chainsaw -- but it was an ugly scar), all manner of walking wounded who'd found food and safety at Dude and Harry's.
Dude and Harry themselves were quite the sight. Both frightfully skinny, one with a beard more wild than his brother's, but otherwise indistinguishable in their scruffiness. Their clothes were stained with food and tobacco juice, and they were occasionally seen to be chewing and smoking tobacco simultaneously.
Scattered around the main room were bits of broken furniture, some cute homemade rustic items, a couple of serviceable chairs, a nice side table, several handsome old wooden crates with familiar company names on them, loose pages of newspaper, some of them decades old, and a waist-high vase that screamed "Ming Dynasty," which either Dude or Harry (I never could tell) was using as a spittoon.
My father spotted the vase immediately, but played it cool. He casually asked about several items in the room:
"That chair?"
"Five bucks," said Harry. Or maybe Dude.
"How about that side table?"
"Eight."
"The Hires Root Beer crate?"
"Two bucks."
"The vase?"
"Three thousand bucks."
So much for a quick deal on an Asian antique.
*****
That's all I can think of at the moment. Some of them, I hope, are funny. Others... maybe you had to be there.
Please, share some family stories tonight. I'd be just lovely.