SPECIAL FATHER’S DAY EDITION! HAPPY FATHER’S DAY TO ALL YOU DADS OUT THERE.
I was 17.
She was 20.
She wore jean shorts that were way too short and shirts that were way too flimsy. High top boots designed for a different kind of combat. Most of the time she wore sunglasses, which was just as well. If you looked into her eyes, you saw her soul, and it made you want her to put them back on. She smelled of sunflowers and sin, and I’d never cared much for sunflower.
I’m not sure if she had ever graduated high school, but I knew I hadn’t yet.
She was as pure as the driven snow, but it was never clear who’d been doing the driving.
She was this Ranchero.
A mishmash of parts that didn’t all fit together mixed with a series of stories that couldn’t all be told.
We only went out a couple of times, each of them resulting in a lot more questions than answers.
I brought her home to have dinner with the folks. Not because I thought the ‘relationship’ was going anywhere, but more just to enjoy the reactions from the parents I knew she would elicit.
I was not disappointed.
Before the salad was finished my dad looked over at me and winked. (That had never happened before.) By the time the meat loaf was served there were beads of sweat on my mother’s forehead, and a barely discernible quiver in her voice I’d never heard before.
In that brief moment between me asking her to show everyone her latest piercing and her pulling back her mane of disheveled curly chestnut brown hair to reveal the fifth earring in the cartilage of her left ear, watching the apprehension and dread wash over Mom and Dad’s faces made life worth living.
She was the Ranchero with too many miles and countless modifications that could have easily taken me on a journey to places I never needed to go.
I knew that. My parents knew that. But they didn’t know that I knew that. And I loved watching them squirm all the way through the Sara Lee cheese cake served at the end of one of the most awkward dinners ever staged.
I would love to see this torrid beast sitting in my driveway. But not if my son brought it home. And for for god sakes, not if his girlfriend did.
3 responses to “WHO’S THAT BAD GIRL?”
I went out one time, on New Year’s Eve, with a 20 year old when I was 17. I swore off both shrimp and vodka the next day.
I’m in love with that Ranchero, or whatever it is !
Happy Father’s Day.
During lunch at work, I ate 3 plates of beans (which I know I shouldn’t). When I got home, my wife seemed excited to see me and exclaimed delightedly, “Darling I have a surprise for dinner tonight.” She then blindfolded me and led me to my chair at the dinner table. I took a seat and just as she was about to remove my blindfold, the telephone rang. She made me promise not to touch the blindfold until she returned and went to answer the call. The beans I had consumed were still affecting me and the pressure was becoming unbearable, so while my wife was out of the room I seized the opportunity, shifted my weight to one leg and let one go. It was not only loud, but it smelled like a fertilizer truck running over a skunk in front of a garbage dump! I took my napkin from my lap and fanned the air around me vigorously. Then, shifting to the other leg, I ripped off three more. The stink was worse than cooked cabbage. Keeping my ears carefully tuned to the conversation in the other room, I went on releasing atomic bombs like this for another few minutes. The pleasure was indescribable! Eventually the telephone farewells signaled the end of my freedom, so I quickly fanned the air a few more times with my napkin, placed it on my lap and folded my hands back on it feeling very relieved and pleased with myself. My face must have been the picture of innocence when my wife returned, apologizing for taking so long. She asked me if I had peaked through the blindfold, and I assured her I had not. At this point, she removed the blindfold, and twelve family members seated around the table, with their hands to their noses, chorused, “Happy Father’s Day!”