Hell. Yes.
I have noticed that my father has become, well, edgier in his old age. My my mother, C, has apparently chosen to document this. Extensively. Personally, I think this is because C realized that she was pegged as the parent closer to the verge of hysterics and she’s now enjoying not being the “crazy one.” Last week, my father tagged along with C and me to the antique market. We weren’t even out of the parking lot before my father announced that he may buy a gun today and he isn’t going to register it because he doesn’t want the government to know that he has it when it takes over. And then he quietly threatened an old woman who dared to walk in front of our car. C responded by texting me, “are you HEARING this?”
Thus, I should not have been too surprised that my father freaked out when Atlanta iced over and he couldn’t leave the house. Or shocked when I got a string of texts from my mother fully documenting the event.
I really want to be part of a good mutiny.
Warp speed!
As a criminal defense attorney, I feel that on a weekly basis I see a pretty good sample of the totally off-the-wall stuff that people do. My threshold for what really shocks me has slowly decreased. So I was pretty surprised when this week’s “what.” moment came from one of our civil clients.
Because of attorney-client privilege, I can’t discuss my cases. I will, however, say this: a JibJab e-card of you, the plaintiff, singing Feliz Navidad with your superimposed head on every member of a marichi band is probably not going to send the “merry Christmas; hey, let’s settle” vibe that you were hoping it would.
It seems that I have a weird habit of attracting various items that won’t go away. I should explain. Walk with me.
Back in college, my roommate, S, and I threw a party for the Equestrian team. We awoke the next morning to a keg stuck to our living room floor. We don’t know who brought it and no one claimed it.
S was, what I call, a “saver.” She didn’t hoard things so much as she just saved them over time, thinking that one day they would cause her great financial gain. ”But you don’t eat that cereal,” I would remark about a coupon that lay dormant in our catch-all drawer. To which she would argue that someone damn well better because it’s 32 cents off. I always wondered if she knew she was just kidding herself, but I think she was a true believer. I soon learned that taste and allergies be damned, the coupon wasn’t going anywhere and neither was the keg. S hatched a plan to return the keg and be awarded some kind of deposit and thus it became our “$40 goldmine.” The problem was that neither one of us could manage to drag our lazy selves all of the 1.2 miles to the store to claim the reward. Instead, we just moved it from place to place. It lived in my shower the weekend that her parents visited and eventually became a table. Before Christmas vacation, all doped up on hot-tea, DayQuil and the spirit of giving, we finally dragged the keg to the dumpster.
Apparently, the keg had other plans. When we returned from the holidays, there it was, sitting on our door step. Complete with a new pump, left over, we guessed, from its own Christmas adventure. ”The keg has chosen us,” she whispered. It was weird, but I still wanted it gone.
She disagreed. ”Maybe it was Santa. Or God.”
“Maybe it was that asshole on the first floor.”
“Whatever. Its got a pump now so that has to be at least worth an extra $10.”
She got that far-off look in her eyes, like she was Scrooge McDuck swimming in the $50 in change that she would eventually receive and I knew that it was hopeless. The keg returned to our living room, radiating immaturity and regret to visitors and the weekly Bible study that we hosted.
Seven years and 6 episodes of Hoarders later, I am even more adverse to being “chosen” by random items. I thought the days to accumulating crap I don’t need were over. I was wrong. Enter the Thinker:
This little beauty moved in with my law school roommate and me during our third year. She swears it isn’t hers and I know it isn’t mine. I asked her to take it with her when she moved out after we took the Virginia Bar, but she was too exhausted to move it and I was too exhausted to protest. When I moved to Georgia, I could have sworn that I left it, but, somehow, the Thinker followed me. I’m concerned that if I throw it away, the Thinker will return after Christmas with a hat or other accessory. I catch myself watching it from the corner of my eye as if it’s a character in Toy Story and there’s a horse, a cowgirl and a prospector waiting to complete the set.
I think I’ll give it to S to cherish and entertain thoughts of eventually selling.
There it is. The Chair. I call it “The Thing That Is Way Too Big To Fit In The Living Room.” He calls it “The Best Decision I Have Ever Made.”
I realize that I have been 8 months M.I.A. and I sincerely apologize to my one follower. The main reasons for my radio silence are (1) work has been insane, (2) general laziness and (3) I got married.
No, this blog will not recount all of my wedding memories and advice. But I will probably include a few details that to pretend never happened would just be criminal.
Thus, the bridesmaids luncheon.
This is a photo is of a seating chart created by my mother, C. For those that do not know C, she is pretty much perfect at planning functions. There is no way my wedding or 85% of my life’s main events would have ever happened without her. She is detailed, thoughtful and her intensity when she is in The Zone can only be matched the fire of one thousand suns.
So, despite whatever Freud may say, this was probably an accident. I, however, prefer to believe that she knew exactly what she was doing. I prefer to picture her grinning maniacally as she pens the name of my staunchly Southern Baptist, great aunt at the head of the penis.
While driving home to my parents’ house in Atlanta, Georgia, I actually passed a fox wandering down the sidewalk like it was someone’s lost pure-bred pet.
And then I remembered David the Gnome.
And then I named it Swift.
“My wall paper and I are in a battle to the death. One or the other must go.” —
Oscar Wilde
Seriously. I don’t know what is killing me faster: this cold/stomach death or the heinous, peach, Days Inn crap on the walls at the doctor’s office.
What a time to be allergic to wheat.
