Fifty Cents And Yellow Skin
RaisingDad
by Jim and Henry Duchene
Thank You For Your Service
“fifty cents and yellow skin”
My wife is not only beautiful but she’s also very generous.
More generous than I am, that’s for sure.
We were at a restaurant and my wife saw a young clean-cut gentleman in a wheelchair. He was missing a leg.
“Do you see that man?” she asked me.
“Who?” I said.
“The man in a wheelchair.”
I said no, not because I didn’t see him, but because I knew saying yes would cost me money.
My wife wasn’t fooled.
“Your father was in the service,” she said, giving me an elbow to the ribs, disgusted by my financial thriftiness. She got up and walked over to the young man.
“Thank you for your service,” she told him, her eyes moist with tears. “I’d be honored to pay for your food.”
“I was in a car accident,” the young man told her.
He must have seen her embarrassment because he quickly added, “But you can still pay for my food.”
My wife told me it was a long walk back to our table.
I didn't laugh because, man, her elbows hurt.
“Now you know why I don’t do any good deeds,” I told her.
She's right, though. She usually is. My father was in the service. It would have been nice if someone had bought him a meal when he was heading back home. All he had was a bus ticket and fifty cents in his pocket.
Oh, and yellow skin.
He had been stationed in the Philippines and had caught a nasty case of malaria when his discharge papers came through. As soon as he was well enough not to be contagious, he was sent on his way, yellow skin and all. Maybe they do things differently these days. Judging by the number of homeless veterans there are, maybe not.
A while back I thought I'd be nice, so I bought muffins from a restaurant called Molly's. The food there is just as good as the muffins, and the muffins are VERY good indeed. I bought a half dozen, two of which were bran, because those are my favorite. They come in a clear plastic container and hold exactly six.
"Hey, pop," I told him as I walked into the house. "I brought us some muffins."
"Ooooweee," my father answered. He likes Molly's muffins, too. He likes them so much, he even got up from his (my) favorite chair in the great room and forgot all about whatever baseball game he was sleeping through.
I put the container down on the kitchen island and went to get myself a glass of milk.
"You want some milk?" I asked him.
"Oh, boy. You bet," he said.
So I got two glasses from the kitchen cabinets, took the milk out of the refrigerator, and began to pour us some. This was before I knew about Fran Drescher's anti-white diet. (What I do now is add some chocolate syrup to my milk. That changes the color. Problem solved.)
Meanwhile, my father went over to the container and opened it up.
"There's two bran muffins in there, if you want one," I told him.
He didn't say anything. What he did was...
He began touching the muffins. He pressed down lightly on one, then pressed down lightly on another. Testing their sponginess, I reckon.
I didn't say anything, because, well, I was flabbergasted. I don't know why he was touching all the muffins. Maybe he was deciding which muffin he was going to eat by its ability to spring back to its natural roundness on top.
I placed his glass of milk in front of him.
"Which one are you going to eat, son?" he asked me, still molesting them.
"I bought them for you, pop," I told him after a pause. "Help yourself."
"Thanks," he said, and dug in.
My wife walked into the kitchen right then.
"Oh, you brought some Molly's?" she said, her eyes sparkling at the sight. She loves those muffins, too.
I shook my head. My father didn't see me, because he was already busy eating.
"Yeah," I told her. "I got them for pop."
She looked at me, the sparkle in her eyes changing to curiousity, but she took my hint. Being married as long as we have, she gets the little nuances that might otherwise go missed. Later, I told her what happened.
"And you didn't want to eat a muffin because of that?"
She tried making me feel guilty, but I know she doesn't like people touching her food, either. There was no way she was going to eat any of those muffins.
I get those little nuances, too.
************************
I played hide & seek in the hospital.
They found me in the ICU.
@Alacazowie
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