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Family Dynamics
Feb. 5th, 2005 09:23 amMixed marriage couple came into the store this week – he was a Republican ex-Marine, she was a hippie, they've been breeding happily together for twenty-five years. They did the Lucy/Ricky thing, sparring amiably together over the hot sauce bar and filling me in on the family dynamics – their eldest is married with a kid of her own, but they also have an elementary-school-age son plus a teenage girl.
"Terrible taste in boyfriends," said the guy.
"Not so terrible," said the woman. "They're just not into team sports. What sane human being is?"
The guy snorted. "Long distance running! That's not a sport, it's training for a career in bank robbery. Anyway, here's what I do. I tell her, 'You can go out with the jerk – what the hell. You'll be buying your own movie tickets but that just means more cheap baby-sitting for us. But before you go out with him, he's gotta pass The Test.'"
"What's The Test?" I ask.
The guy grins and picks up a bottle of Blair's After Death. "Hot sauce," he says.
He sits prospective boyfriends down at the kitchen table and starts pouring them shots. If they can go all the way up to Da Bomb, no curfew. If they wimp out at Susie's Calypso, it's home by 10.
"And does your daughter date a lot?" I ask.
"Funniest thing," says the guy, grinning. "Lily spends all her time at home studying for the SAT."
"Disgusting," says the woman, shaking her head.
"Hey, it was not part of the program for Molly to get knocked up at 18."
"There are ways around that," said the woman.
"Thanks, but we don't kill babies in my family," said the guy.
The woman raised her eyebrows slightly and winked at me. But I don't care about their family dynamics, I just want to close the sale. Which I do to the tune of thirty-some-odd dollars. A lot of work for two zeros.
In other intergenerational news, Robin's fifth grad teacher Mrs. B. had a mini-nervous breakdown this week on account of her eighty year old mother who was busted for harboring 136 cats in her decrepit Pacific Grove shack. Mrs. B. was apparently unaware of her mother's animal loving proclivities as well as her incipient Alzheimer's which makes me even more suspicious of Mrs. B.'s own teaching and nurturing capacities. I mean, how observant can Mrs. B. be? We had our own run-in with Mrs. B. last week when she gave Robin a C on a Revolutionary War board game he'd spent an entire week designing.
"Too complicated," she wrote. "Derivative. He obviously did not spend much time thinking this through."
Huh?
Of course, I delight in Mrs. B's misfortune. Reporters for the local network news outlets have been lurking just outside ISM's cyclone fences all this week, in the hopes of catching footage of the beleaguered Mrs. B. wasting attention on undeserving students while her own mother goes neglected.
"That means you have to look extra good," I explain, fighting with Robin's unruly hair. "Photo opportunity alert!"
Robin just wants to know if we can adopt ten or so of the cats.
"Terrible taste in boyfriends," said the guy.
"Not so terrible," said the woman. "They're just not into team sports. What sane human being is?"
The guy snorted. "Long distance running! That's not a sport, it's training for a career in bank robbery. Anyway, here's what I do. I tell her, 'You can go out with the jerk – what the hell. You'll be buying your own movie tickets but that just means more cheap baby-sitting for us. But before you go out with him, he's gotta pass The Test.'"
"What's The Test?" I ask.
The guy grins and picks up a bottle of Blair's After Death. "Hot sauce," he says.
He sits prospective boyfriends down at the kitchen table and starts pouring them shots. If they can go all the way up to Da Bomb, no curfew. If they wimp out at Susie's Calypso, it's home by 10.
"And does your daughter date a lot?" I ask.
"Funniest thing," says the guy, grinning. "Lily spends all her time at home studying for the SAT."
"Disgusting," says the woman, shaking her head.
"Hey, it was not part of the program for Molly to get knocked up at 18."
"There are ways around that," said the woman.
"Thanks, but we don't kill babies in my family," said the guy.
The woman raised her eyebrows slightly and winked at me. But I don't care about their family dynamics, I just want to close the sale. Which I do to the tune of thirty-some-odd dollars. A lot of work for two zeros.
In other intergenerational news, Robin's fifth grad teacher Mrs. B. had a mini-nervous breakdown this week on account of her eighty year old mother who was busted for harboring 136 cats in her decrepit Pacific Grove shack. Mrs. B. was apparently unaware of her mother's animal loving proclivities as well as her incipient Alzheimer's which makes me even more suspicious of Mrs. B.'s own teaching and nurturing capacities. I mean, how observant can Mrs. B. be? We had our own run-in with Mrs. B. last week when she gave Robin a C on a Revolutionary War board game he'd spent an entire week designing.
"Too complicated," she wrote. "Derivative. He obviously did not spend much time thinking this through."
Huh?
Of course, I delight in Mrs. B's misfortune. Reporters for the local network news outlets have been lurking just outside ISM's cyclone fences all this week, in the hopes of catching footage of the beleaguered Mrs. B. wasting attention on undeserving students while her own mother goes neglected.
"That means you have to look extra good," I explain, fighting with Robin's unruly hair. "Photo opportunity alert!"
Robin just wants to know if we can adopt ten or so of the cats.
