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When I Get There

My father was born almost a hundred years ago, give or take a decade. I find that amazing. Myself, although I'm closer to the end of my life than the beginning, I'll only understand what he's going through when I get there. When I was 10-years-old I broke my leg doing something stupid. Hey, I was a kid. Doing stupid things was my job. Have you ever heard of anybody breaking their leg doing something smart? I don't remember how I got to the hospital, but I do remember when I got there my father was already there, waiting for me. He was dressed in his policeman's uniform. Some nurses may have looked at him and swooned, because my father was a pretty handsome guy, especially in his uniform, but, to me, I looked at him and just saw my dad. He lifted me up in his arms and carried me into the hospital. I don't have the words to explain how safe I felt in his arms. It was the last time in my life I let myself feel like a baby. My father held me and I knew everything wa...
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The Very Next Day (part three)

  You might think I drink a lot of coffee.  That's because I do.  I don't have a lot of bad habits, but if drinking coffee's a bad habit, then that's one of them. I don't drink. I don't smoke. I don't do drugs. But put a cup of coffee in front of me, and I'll make it disappear faster than my paycheck in the hands of my ex-wife. So, after dinner the next day, my wife serves me a cup of coffee. I sit at the table. I look at the patio. I look at my wife. She looks at me. Then at my father. "Would you like some ice cream before we go outside?" she asks him. "Uh..." he says.  He's trying to be polite. My wife cuts him off at the pass. "It's new," she tells him.  I look up from my cup. I didn't know my wife had gone shopping. "What?" "The ice cream. It's new." "It is?" "It is." "What kind is it?" "The new kind." Now, before you think my father's a seni...
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I Apologize (part two)

"This ice cream's not very good," I heard my Dad tell my wife. Let me stop right here and formally apologize to my mother for my having been a kid. I can't begin to tell you the times she served me a perfectly good meal, sometimes even perfectly delicious, and it didn't meet the standards of a dork who would eat dirt.  Don't judge me for eating dirt.  As a kid, I had a friend who used to eat his own boogers. The gaggle of kids I used to hang around with were repulsed, but also fascinated. "What do they taste like?" we'd ask him. "Salty," he'd say. We'd offer him our own boogers, freshly picked, but he thought that was gross. I always found that funny. Eating his own boogers was fine, but eating the boogers of others was not. I would have thought he would have enjoyed the variety.  Hmmm, now that I think about it... I wonder if he was picky about his mother's food. That reminds me of a joke. I would tell it to you, but it...
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My Wife Is A Saint (part one)

  My wife's a saint. When I first asked her if my dad could move in with us, she said, "Sure, why not?" Her own father had passed away a few years earlier, and she had always gotten along with mine. Besides, he was a grown man. Self-sufficient. He used to be in the Army, for gosh sakes. During World War II. How much trouble could he be? The house we live in has a guest house in the front that is separated from our house by a nice patio. The guest house is where my father now lives, and the patio is where I enjoy drinking coffee and reading the newspaper in the morning. It's also where I enjoy drinking coffee and talking with my wife in the evening. Did I mention that I enjoy drinking coffee? That's because I do. When I sit there, the kitchen is directly behind me. On the evening he moved in, I was enjoying coffee by myself, and I could hear my wife talking with my father. "Dad," she said, trying to be nice and make him feel at home, "would you like ...
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Funny Shades of Grey--chapter five

Chapter Five    I'm having the wonderfulest dream.   In it, I'm sleeping and dreaming that I'm asleep. I can't wait to wake up, because, when I do, I'll be triply refreshed. (And, yes, I did just make up the word "triply.")   In my dream, I see my Unconscious. She's snoring like a pig.   Christian Grey walks into the room, and I rouse from my slumber. I can't believe how comfortably I slept, but then I'm used to falling asleep in strange places.   Mr. Grey--hair wet, skin glistening with beads of water--has just gotten out of the shower. He's still wearing the red rubber ball. Only not on his nose.   I yawn and stretch. Oh my gosh! I'm completely naked underneath the silk sheets!   "Did I...?" I ask, seductively.   "No," he answers.   "Did you...?" I ask, accusingly.   "No."   "Did we...?" I ask, disappointedly.   "No."   "Are you sure?"   ...
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Funny Shades of Grey--chapter four

Chapter Four    "I never want to see you again in my life," he tells me, his eyes soft but hard, his voice kind but cruel, his arms strong but also letting me drop to the concrete sidewalk.   I bounce back up and wiggle my way back into his arms like an intestinal parasite. He tries to soften the blow.   "It's not you, it's me," he says. "Okay, it's you, but it's also me. But just a little bit me. In fact, my part in it is so small that, statistically speaking, it's not me at all, but you. Since I'm a gentleman, however, I'll include myself. (But it's not me.)" xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx     I make it back to the apartment I share with Kate, and she immediately sees that I'm crying.   "Ana! What's wrong? What did he do? Did he take you to bed and call you by my name?"   "Worse," I tell her.   "He called you by José's name?"   "Worse than that. I was ready to give h...
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