Isobel-(Snooort) "Pee-yew!"
Isobel-(Snooort) "Pee-yew!"
Daddy-"What's the matter?"
Isobel- (Snooort) "Pee-yew, my gloves stink."
Daddy-"Oh yeah? Why do your gloves stink?"
Isobel-(Snooort) "Eeew, my gloves stink like pee."
Daddy-(laughing) "Why do your gloves stink like pee? Did somebody pee on your gloves?"
Isobel-(Cryptically) "Maybe..."
There comes a time when you just have to step back and stop being...parental for a while and let the kid be a kid. Sitting around sipping margaritas on a Tuesday night in Mexico is as close to one of those times as I think one can ever get.
The beginning of this was simple enough, my mother in law has decided that we swear too much, (I never did find out if she meant Mrs. Narrator and I or the family as a whole) and so we would set up a swear jar. The thought being anytime someone swears, a quarter goes in the jar and when it gets to a decent amount, we buy bagpipes with it...I mean the family does something nice and tries not to refill it while doing the nice thing.
The Boy took to this idea with relish, thinking that the proceeds of the swear jar go to the person who swore the least or not at all. So not only did he not swear, he took it upon himself to remind everyone else that they owed money to the jar...which in turn caused them to owe more money. A brilliant scheme if you ask me and one I wish I would have thought of myself. Though the prospect of me going through life without uttering a single profane thing is sadly, unlikely...god-dammit. (see) He carried on this way until he found out that the swear jar's proceeds would not be coming his way despite his monastic devotion to living curse free and this revelation forced him to make a contribution of his own to the jar. They all fall eventually.
It became rather funny and cut-throat all the same. Everyone ratting and tattling on everyone else.
"That's a quarter..." rang out through the halls of the condo from morning to night as son turned against mother and daughter against grandmother, all hoping to fill the jar in record time. I myself was down for $ 2.50 in the short walk from the condo to the beach (blister on my pinky toe) To what end this would all come, I don't think anyone was certain but it was starting to become The Treasure of the Sierra Madre around that place. Mistrust and suspicion ran rampant as everyone insisted that someone else owed money to the god awful jar.
I should probably state right now that the jar never actually existed. The jar was a suggestion from Mrs. narrator's mother and it spawned this chaos. I shudder to think of the result if there had actually been a jar. It made for a very polite house with many minding their P's & Q's but it also made things feel forced and awkward and just not us.
Isobel had just about as much as she could take and the cracks were starting to show through the veneer. She was getting frustrated doing something and let one fly.
"Shit!" she said.
"That's a quarter," said The Boy.
"Daddy, can I say that word?"
"What word, Izzy?" I asked.
"Shit." she said.
"You shouldn't say that word, no." I said without much enthusiasm.
"But I just love it so much!" she blurted.
I can't emphasize enough, just how much zeal and passion were in her voice at that moment. it has always been one of my favourite words too so who was I to say something when she went on.
"Shit...that's a quarter. Shit...that's a quarter. Shit...that's a quarter."
"IZZY!" said The Boy, looking as though he might faint away at the potential windfall that would go in the swear jar from his sister's lone tirade.
"When we go to get groceries next time, maybe I should as the cab driver if I can take my shit in his cab?"
"Oh man," said The Boy. He got up and walked away. He was either embarrassed by this all or he went to find a calculator. Then she turned to her grandmother and continued.
"Oma, it's OK to swear like me. I can only say shit and god-dammit. I can't say the really bad one. I can't say fuck but you probably can, you're older than me."
"Alright," Mrs. narrator said. "Now it's getting out of control. At first it was kind of cute but now it's getting carried away. No more swearing Isobel."
"None, not even shit?" she asked.
"None," said Mrs. Narrator. "It's enough now."
"See Daddy, I didn't even say fuck." said Isobel.
"That's good Pick," I said, unsure what I should say.
"That's a quarter," said The Boy.
Like all good things, our time in Mexico came to an end and so we went to the airport and headed for home. I'd like to say it was uneventful but it wasn't...though the tribulations at the Mexican airport are best left for another day.
We boarded our plane for the second leg of our journey and Izzy got the window seat next to me. She was thrilled about having a window seat. She was equally thrilled about the contents of the seat back.
"Look Daddy, look at my magazines and this is my...Daddy what is this?'
"It's an emergency manual." I replied.
"Right," she went on. "my emergency manual."
The she saw the last thing in the seat back and from her expression and exuberance, you'd have thought it was the academy award...she certainly deserved one...
"And look Daddy...MY puke bag!"
"It certainly is." I said. If you look out the window in a minute or two, you'll be able to see the lights of the whole city."
It was about seven o'clock and it was still February and so already dark outside as we took off.
"Wow, look at all the lights. So pretty. Hey Daddy, I can see our house from here!"
"You have some great eyes Izzy if you can see our house all the way from Chicago."
Within a couple of minutes we had risen above the clouds and she couldn't see anything but inky blackness.
"Daddy, I can't see anything anymore."
We're too high now honey. If it was daytime you could see something but at night all you can see is dark."
"Great," she said. "Now I'm blind. I'm flying blind."
Soon the flight attendant came by with the cart and asked Isobel if she wanted anything to drink. She naturally became shy and buried her face in armpit. She whispered in my ear and I chuckled out loud. The flight attendant asked if Isobel had whispered what she wanted to me.
"No," I replied. "She wants to know if the pilot can turn the lights on outside the plane so she can see the ground."
No comments:
Post a Comment