Murphy Rides Shotgun, part 2

Well, it was miraculous, five minutes later my wife came downstairs in a beautiful black dress, with perfectly coordinated pearls and earrings. She was ready. At least I thought she was completely ready. She was dressed to kill. And she was ready to go. My son was ready. My daughter was ready. It was only 9:45 AM and according to Mapquest it would take 2 hours and 44 minutes to get there so we had actually a minute to spare.
Mapquest, however, has times based on a utopian, no traffic, no rest stop, and no road construction universe. I had to admit the first half-hour through New Hampshire was close to that. There was traffic and it was moving very well at ten miles an hour above the speed limit, and that velocity kept up even going through the one urban area where the limit dropped to 50 mph. This meant that all the traffic, and I mean every car was cruising along twenty-five miles per hour over the limit. I believe that posted speed limits must be only a suggestion. We flew down to Massachusetts. Then we hit the non-utopian real world. Now, one would think that on a hot summer Sunday most traffic would be headed to the beaches and since we were going in the opposite direction, we would have the road to ourselves. However I think that the Commonwealth has a law that requires 75% of vehicles to be on the road at any one time so we were part of a vast slow westward migration. Any time we gained, in New Hampshire was lost and a good bit of time we hadn’t gained went by the Massachusetts wayside.
We then opened up as we crossed the Connecticut border. (Connecticut doesn’t have such a law). We actually were able to cruise quite handily down from Northern Connecticut through Hartford. Much of this can be attributed to the astute judgement of me, the driver. There was the temptation to use the high-speed express lane for cars with more than one passenger. But, having driven thousands of miles of single lane travel in NH, I remembered a little known corollary of Murphy’s law ‘If one is on a no passing highway, one will attract in front of them a vehicle going ten miles an hour below the posted limit’. Sure enough. There was a line of cars in that lane going 50 mph behind an ever-so-cautious elderly couple in a Coupe De Ville. I was congratulating myself on this bit of genius when my wife said. “ I need a bag to go with this dress, so if you see someplace…” See someplace? Cruising on an Interstate at 75 mph there is little chance to see a quaint little boutique on the side of the road. I nodded, and continued.
We reached the exit for our destination at 12:47PM. Not bad at all. And it was along a shopping strip. This was indeed the height of Serendipity. We drove past the restaurant where the party was being held and my ever-astute daughter had to point out the people entering with the words “Oh My God, Mom. You are so overdressed.”
My jaw dropped. The center didn’t hold. The bottom fell out. I turned to my wife and she said, “Turn in here, there is a Marshall’s and a Kohl’s.” My daughter informed me that she needed lip-gloss. Why she didn’t need it before now is one of the mysteries I am looking forward to having answered in the afterlife. She also informed me that she had a headache and needed migraine medicine. There was also a supermarket in this glorified strip mall. I did as instructed. I dropped my wife at Marshall’s, and my son and daughter at the supermarket and parked. Lo and behold, ten minutes later they were back. My wife was impeccably attired in what was probably a several degrees more casual dress, (it was still in the ‘dressy’ category to me), And daughters lips were probably much more glossy than they had been. I use the photographic method of judging lips, either matte or glossy, which apparently is too crude a standard. I turned to daughter. “Did you get migraine medicine?” I got the “do you expect me to do everything” look, and so I re-entered the supermarket for the medicine. After marveling at the casual laid-back method of the cashiers I emerged and entered the car and pulled out. We arrived at the shindig at precisely 1:15PM and since it was a typical Italian affair we only missed the hor devours. Not bad. This meant we still had the antipasto, the salad, the pasta, the prime ribs with potatoes and vegetables, the cake with coffee and the pastries with espresso. I considered it a triumph.

Murphy Rides Shotgun

I hate being late. I am notorious for getting work done at the last minute, or not completing things on time, but I really dislike being late for people and events. However I live with three other people to whom it does not seem to matter. They are always rushing out the door. And two minutes past the last minute. If it is a family event, I am often warming up the car reading a book while they are chaotically looking for things and tripping out the door.
Yesterday was just such an occasion. My wife is Italian, born in Italy. She is part of an extended family. Now, My family is large. I have a ton of first cousins, most of whom I know their names. Some of them are fairly close, but I have to admit some of them I have lost touch with. Not so with her family, third cousins, fourth removed are deep in the bosom of the family. Along with this familial web comes many milestones, baptisms, weddings, graduations, and anniversaries. We had to attend such a function yesterday, in Connecticut, three hours away from here.
Since I know what happens, and since the party began at 12:30 PM I told people to be ready at 9:00 AM. In my naivete, I assumed that the half-hour cushion would be sufficient, and things seemed to be going well. I had awakened early, made sure my son’s clothes were ready, showered, shaved. I even went out and filled the car with gas, bought Dramamine for my daughter, candy, and gum for the road. I was almost hopeful that, for the first time we might actually do it. Heck, we might actually leave early and be able to relax on the ride down. Now, Murphy and his law were constantly flitting in and out of my field of view, and I knew something would go wrong, but it seemed that whatever it was would be minor, and I had out witted Mr. Murphy this time. (I have never gotten a good view, so I am not absolutely sure Murphy is male, but I will go on that hunch).
The first hint of something wrong was when my wife came down the stairs carrying her dress. It looked beautiful, dressy, covered with a lace material. I knew it looked good, and it seemed fine to me but my wife is a perfectionist, to say the least. My daughter, who was already dressed and I thought stunningly, looked at her mother’s dress and said, “I am way too over-dressed if you are going to wear that!”
This should have set off five-alarm warning bells, and I did begin to feel the first rumbling of panic. But we were running ahead of schedule, and I knew the lovely daughter had a back-up dress so when she got it, and put it on, and looked just as fantastic as before I shrugged off the fears. I must digress here just to admit that the second dress appeared exactly as formal as the first. But I have learned a thing or two and didn’t voice this obviously ignorant opinion lest I be subject to the rolling of eyes and dismissive sneer that only a fifteen-year-old can inflict.
Meanwhile my son had showered, and donned his suit pants, and had taken the white shirt that I have ironed early and slipped it on. No sooner had one arm been enveloped by the crisp brilliant white sleeve than he grumbled. “These sleeves are way too long, I can’t wear this.” My jaw dropped. Surely this could not be my offspring, the fruit of my loins, the carrier of my genes. Here was the son of a man who had attended his sisters wedding in corduroy beige pants, a tan sport coat and an orange shirt with a bunny pattern, the firstborn of the man who had such a sartorial touch with rope belts, and uneven cut-off jeans that one of his college professors christened him ‘Oleg’ after the designer Oleg Cassini, I looked at him and he said. “I need another shirt.” I replied, but Brian, you will have your sleeves rolled up, it is going to be 95 today. I got the ‘What planet are you from?” look in return, and his mother reflected the look and said, “There is a pink shirt in his room that you can iron. “
Ok, I reassured myself, I can do that; it will only take five minutes. And it did so I smiled and handed him his perfectly ironed shirt with a smile even as I wondered why he wasn’t the one doing the ironing but was rather engrossed in a video game bare-chested, sockless, and unshaven. I pointed out to him that the most logical method would be to shave before donning the shirt. He looked at me with the amazed look of discovery that is only seen in the eyes of a scientist who has made a Nobel Prize breakthrough.
My wife meanwhile had brought he dress to the ironing board for ‘just a quick touch-up’ and I had gone upstairs to check on the lovely daughter. There was no great cause for concern; she asked me if the pair of earrings she was holding to her earlobes looked ok. I responded that Cleopatra herself would couldn’t have chosen better, and got the other planetary look from that quarter. But all was ok; at this rate we would still be out of the house between 9 and 9:30 and would be among the early arrivals.
Then I heard the scream. Screams are not a good thing in any situation, (well, maybe in one or two) but this was definitely not the scream of one lost in ecstasy. I ran down stairs and looked at my wife, standing over what could have been a fresh-killed corpse. She had been distracted and had pushed the iron through the lace ripping a three-inch gouge in it. I was dumbstruck. Murphy could be heard belly-laughing in the background. Here was one of his masterpieces. I looked at my poor distraught wife wordlessly. She looked up at me and muttered, “Maybe I can fix it.” I thought to myself, “Maybe we will just miss the milling around before the first course.”
My wife is inventive and resourceful but even she, after fifteen minutes of futile attempts with glue-gun, hemming tape, needle and thread and other assorted crafting tools, admitted defeat. And looked at me and asked, “Now what can I wear?” This is one of those wifely with no correct answer, like “does this make me look fat?” I shrugged mutely, knowing that I hadn’t a clue as to what the possibilities were. Like most husbands I only had a vague idea that my wife had some clothes I would consider ‘dressy’ and some I would consider ‘not so dressy’. She realized her idiocy in asking me rather than the wall and stormed upstairs.
I resigned myself to defeat and looked at the clock. If she could miraculously find a dress that suited her, and nothing else disastrous occurred, and I was able to fly down the highways at a steady eighty miles an hour we could get there in time to be the next to last stragglers.
(to be continued)

Reincarnation ain't all its Cracked Up to Be

I have a son. He is now 19 and between Freshman and Sophomore year in college. I am a victim of the mother’s curse. “I hope your kids are just like you”. It is uncanny and terrifying. He is smart, charming, witty and totally exasperating. He is half way through his summer vacation and still looking for his summer job. Well, as he tells me every day when I force him off his butt to go out looking, “Padre, (for some reason known only to him I am his Padre) I have a job.” That is, he is still officially a part-time Pharmacist Technician at a large supermarket here, but they haven’t given him any hours since they cut back in February. So he will dutifully go out and fill in an application and be exhausted from the effort. I have a sneaking suspicion that he writes, under the entry for other interests, “Sleeping, renting out on-demand movies using my father’s money and eating”.
Of course those are not his only interests, he does like going out, playing his bass and guitar, oh and did I mention sleeping? He can write, and act, and do pretty much anything he puts his mind to. If he would only. I feel like I am living my life over, and it is as exasperating.

Father of a teen

I became a father at forty. That’s when my son came into the world. My daughter was born four years later. That is when I figured out, that I might be too old for fatherhood. She spent the first 28 days of her life in neo-natal ICU. She was impatient to get out and see the world and didn’t wait for her digestive system to develop. So for the first four weeks of her life she was fed from a bottle through a tube in her nose. It was mother’s milk but the delivery method was unorthodox. It was during one of those feedings when she was nestled on my forearm looking up at me that I was struck with a cold chill. I looked at her and realized one day she was going to be a teenager, not only that, but a teenaged GIRL. I wiped the cold sweat from my forehead and then had a moment of relief, a plan developed. I would almost be senile by then. If I could work it correctly, I could start my second childhood and work my way backward and meet her at aged eight. She would think I had boy cooties, and I would think she had girl germs and we could at least coexist. Then by the time she was 13 I would be smiling, and drooling in a rocker in the corner.
However, it didn’t work out that way. She got to be eight, and was a terrific kid, a gymnast, honor student, and fun to be with. Then came the dark ages, I think it was around eleven, but my memory has been tampered with. She gave up gymnastics for dance. That was ok, dancers are cute. I could take all kinds of Dega-esque photos of her and become rich and famous. But along with dancing she became possessed by a demon. This is not an unusual demon I found out, It pretty much possesses every tween girl, or so their pale shaking parents tell me.
Now, Outwardly, in public, there is absolutely no sign of her inner demon. She is beautiful, dances like Terpsichore, and is if anything a more outstanding student. She is helpful, kind, witty and everything in the Boy Scout oath. It is at home where she changes from Beauty to the Beast. She is not bipolar, because bipolar people alternate between highs and lows on a period that is longer than hourly. She can be Daddy’s little girl, all light and cheer and before I can adjust to the saintly lady she has transformed into a creature from the depths, full of darkness and vitriol.
I know it is not an uncommon phenomenon, and I am told that young women grow out of this possession, but by then I will be drooling and shaking, and I am certain I will not be smiling.