COMING OF AGE

Ah, summers, and drinks before dinner on the patio. Except if it isn’t someone using a leaf blower, or a weed whacker, or a lawn mower, or roofers with staple guns, or someone riding up and down the block on his male-menopause straight-pipe Harley, or using the time before dinner to cut some pavers with a diamond-blade saw, it’s dribbling.


--Hear that?
--Do I look deaf?
--Honey, deaf people don’t look deaf.
--Of course I hear it. Dribbling, shouting. He’s out there alone, but still practicing his court shout. Having just girls was not all bad.
--Which is it, do you think? When an adolescent boy’s voice changes, is that when he gets his first basketball, or is he given the basketball with the onset of puberty? To bring about the change of voice? You know, like forcing blooms in a hothouse.
--They’re loud, no question. I remember practicing my backhand against the garage door. I’m sure that had something to do with dad’s first coronary. And our neighbor ending up in detox.
--It’s been so nice out here this summer. I guess we shouldn’t complain.
--I remember going to visit him—my dad. They had him in what was called an oxygen tent. A clear plastic pup tent over his upper body. He wasn’t allowed to do anything, and I shaved him. In retrospect, I think it was a kind of coming-of-age experience.
--That’s very touching. I wish I could have watched you shave your father.
--This must be payback for Harvey, the neighbor. I heard him making jokes last weekend about Michigan losing the game. The kid’s parents are both U of M grads.
--So, now, the parents will pay their son to practice basketball after dark and before sunrise. Any time Harvey’s on his patio, the parents will bribe the kid to stop playing video games and go outside with the basketball
--It could get ugly.

Comments

  1. When Pigs FlyFebruary 10, 2010 at 9:43 AM

    Thanks for stopping by my site. Yes, I think I gave my father a coronary from hitting the tennis ball against the garage. More from making the round marks on the doors than any noise associated with it. Dirt made him crazy and kids are good at ruining adults' stuff.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousFebruary 10, 2010 at 7:46 PM

    I just wandered over here after reading your hilarious take on the old fashioned phone in the Microfiction Monday post. You have plenty of good reading here, but I think the one about the phone was unbeatable.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Barry KnisterFebruary 11, 2010 at 11:59 AM

    Dear When Pigs Fly:
    Practicing my backstroke against the garage door may have been what led to my father's heart attack, but many, many other actions on my part could have been to blame. In fact, it's possible that from 1944 on,the heart attack was a sure bet. During WW2 gas rationing was in effect. I was three when my family used its precious gas coupons to travel to Canada for a short holiday. Hearing so much being said about the scarcity of gas, Barry decided to help dad by filling the tank with bottles of 7-UP. I am told several adults in our party were called on to form a barrier, so that my father, otherwise the gentlest of men, would not succeed in reaching me.
    Dear first50:
    Thanks for wandering over to DBD. The images you post are incitements of the best kind.

    ReplyDelete

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