If you’ve been following me for awhile you know that we’ve been in the process of moving for over a month now. Finally, yes finally, Doug got a truck late yesterday. The plan was to get a helper (a Mexican), to help with moving stuff from the storage to our new home. That was the plan. Well, lo and behold, when I finally had Doug convinced that he really needed a Mexican, there wasn’t one to be had. I don’t know what happened, or where they went. Maybe ICE, formally INS, did a sweep and put them on a bus. Maybe an alien craft beamed them all up.
In the meantime, Doug, Evelyn and I plus Nate(21) and Amanda(23), met for breakfast. While we were eating I happened to casually mention that Doug and I had been getting along better. (Things had been tense of late.) In fact when he came back from a quick meeting with his crew for the Census folks yesterday morning I gave him a quick kiss on the cheek and I playfully grabbed his crotch. It was nothing; not a fondle mind you, just a quick little grab. The funny part was that I had just had my hand in cornstarch so I wound up leaving a white handprint on his dress pants. (Luckily he was changing back into his shorts.) I mentioned this at breakfast and Nate went off like a Roman candle. “I don’t want to hear about that!” He actually went kind of nutty for a minute. I thought I was going to have to find a tranq gun.
Now in his defense, Evelyn and I have been known in the past to cross “the line” in a conversation with the kids. However, the line that he and Amanda set as far as what is acceptable in a conversation is pretty low. They’d both really like to believe that either the stork brought them or they were found in a cabbage patch. It was not my intent, at all, that my statement yesterday would have that effect on him.
It’s true that sometimes we’ve been known just to do it to bug them. However, when Evelyn and I do get going we still don’t sound like a Harlequin romance, you know the kind with the insatiable chamber maid who’s bodice is ripped and the stable boy with throbbing loins. (I’ve actually never read one. Is this accurate?)
Thank God they weren’t raised in the Kinsey family, where last nights sexual endeavors with your significant other were fodder for the breakfast table; where Kinsey would ask his daughter, “Did he bring you to orgasm last night?” Now that would be too far. Do you ever kid about sex in front of your kids and if so, do they freak out?
What you didn’t say was how all those years of therapy had prepared me for this rant (and the many others that have and are sure to come). In the past, I would have ripped him a new one, for sure, but after spending thousands of dollars on getting my head straight, that thought didn’t even come to mind. I was calm and reasonable. Who would have thunk it? What a lucky son he is!
Well the four adults, You, Ken, Doug and I all know that anyway.