Isobel: "I don't want to eat anymore."
Opa: "Aren't you going to finish your burger?"
Isobel: "No, I can't."
Daddy: "What? But it's one of Oma's best burgers."
Isobel: "I can't, Daddy."
Daddy: "Why not?"
Isobel: "Because of my sunburn."
Daddy: "Huh?"
Isobel: "When I eat, my eyebrows go up. When my eyebrows go up, my sunburn hurts."
I often find myself listening to the sound and words that come out of my mouth when I talk to the children. Most of the time it's me but every now and then, it's The Old Man. Not some random old man mind you but THE Old Man. My Father. It's inevitable, I think that we turn into our parents...or distilled versions of them. My grandfather, my Father's Father was a miserable, violent drunken sonofabitch who hated his own kids, never mind the little gutter snipes they had managed to spit out.
My father, in his younger days, was a mellower version of his father. He could be a handful when he drank and he had a snap temper that he would unleash when he got frustrated.( which seemed to be often) I am an even weaker version of the the original cocktail. I do shout more than I probably should and I mutter and grumble when I am drunk. Come to think of it I mutter and grumble most of the time. What do you want from me, I'm old...see, I am wandering away from the point. Old people do that a lot.
We had a dog when I was a kid. A schnauzer. I loved that dog though he didn't have much time for me. I remember seeing movies like Old Yeller, seeing a boy and his dog romping through the forest primeval OK I know the boy shot Old Yeller in the face at the end of that movie but right up to then it was the two of them through thick and thin. I hoped like hell that one day that would be me with our dog.
Now one very clear memory I have, every time I would get within ten feet of the dog I would hear; "Quit mauling that god-damned dog!"
It wouldn't matter where he was, my Father could sense me around the dog. He was in the garage once (completely detached from the house) he came in and wagged his finger at me. I told you to leave the god-damned dog alone! You keep mauling him like that and he's going to bite your ass!"
I was on the couch and the dog was on the floor...how in the hell did he know that I had been terrorizing the dog and running it ragged around the house trying to get it to be my best and only friend short moments before?
A little while after my Father unleashed his psychic prowess, the dog had surgery. A cyst or something removed from it's neck. He was groggy and grumpy and I was told in no uncertain terms that "If you maul that god-damned dog, you'll be sorry and I don't mean maybe." I'm still not clear on what he would have said if he did mean maybe. The message was received and duly noted. The cruel looking bandage wrapped around his neck with just a small spot of blood weeping through was enough to keep me away from him. But not for long.
For whatever reason, the dog chose to sleep with me. I took it as a sign. A sign from above-as clear as any I had ever seen in any movie or TV show. He had finally realized that I was the boy and he was the dog and this was Old Yeller! I was exuberant, overcome with the new found love that a boy can only share with a four legged best friend. I hugged him...tight. And he bit my face...hard.
I screamed and cried and my parents came running in. My face running with
snot and blood and tears."Quit mauling that god-damned dog!" said my Father.
Every family has it's over zealous animal lover. We are no exception. Izzy cannot not touch the cats. She doesn't have a particular favourite, she loves them both equally...and incessantly.
We have tried to tell her on many occasions that if she doesn't stop, the cats will hate her and run when the see her coming. She was getting upset enough with us telling her to stop, that she said she was trying to get the cats to hate her...but even that didn't stop it.
The other day she had both of them tucked under each arm The cats were yowling and squirming and I snapped.
"Quit mauling those god-damned cats!" I said.
She dropped the cats but instead of the lip all a quiver, she looked at me puzzled.
"What's mauling mean?" she asked me.
"It's when you constantly pick something up and hug it and love all over it. Cats don't like that...nothing does really." I replied. "I have a scar on my lip from where our dog bit my when I was a kid, because I kept hugging on him and he didn't like it. That's how he told me to stop. Do you want the cats to do that to you?"
She shook her head.
"Of course you don't." I said. After she walked away looking slightly confused and defeated, I picked up the little black cat and mauled the holy creeping jesus out of it. If I have learned anything from having pets it's that he who controls the food can get away with murder...I don't even feed them the most, I can't imagine how much mauling Mrs. Narrator is getting away with.
We are no strangers to bodily functions at the Fuzzy Blue Chair. We have all in our own way developed a mastery of the bottom burp. Some of us more than others. Really Harold, is he talking about farting again? I'm a guy...and one that barely grew up...farts make me giggle and my kids too...occasionally my wife will laugh but strenuously deny it afterward.
But there is a new sheriff in town and a deputy too for that matter.
The kids and I were sitting around on Sunday afternoon. I had been sipping my favourite ale and was percolating nicely, thank-you. Izzy got up and said she needed to go to the bathroom. I'm not sure why but both kids insist on leaving the door open when they go to the toilet, regardless of what they're doing in there.
I was suddenly aware of a hellacious aroma wafting through the house.
"My god Izzy, that's terrible." I said. You need to close the door or turn the fan on or something."
"Daddy, I didn't do anything."
"What?" I asked.
I didn't do anything, I didn't go to the bathroom yet." she said.
I am acutely aware of my own bouquet and knew it wasn't me. The Boy was sitting motionless and blissfully unaware on the couch playing video games. He is unfamiliar with the smelt it/dealt it regulation and were he the guilty party, he would be happily sniffing away. The poor fool, he hadn't gotten a whiff yet. I didn't have the heart to tell him what was on his way, I figured he'd find out soon enough anyway.
"Oh my god, Sid!" said The Boy. "That's awful." And then he put his head down and went back to his video games. Smelling his own gas all these years has given him some weird kind of immunity.
Words cannot describe adequately what the smell was like. If you took a dead squirrel that you had rolled in week old dog crap and then stuffed it in a sweat sock that had been left in a gym locker in 1974 and then set that on fire, you might get close.
It was the cats...two little kitties. And it wasn't a full litter box, I checked repeatedly. Organic cat food, while I'm certain tasty and delicious has set these two furry little gas bags on a bodily function pedestal. Between the two of them, they can't weigh more than two pounds soaking wet but they have managed to make the entire house smell like Satan's bunghole...my biggest fear is that after the fifteen cans of the rotten stuff we got for free, the little buggers will have developed a taste for it...as I type this, I can smell the stench in the air and the nausea rising in the back of my throat thank christ we all quit smoking...open flame near this would just be whistling past the graveyard at this point...
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