Rockin' the Suburbs

Excerpts from my outing with Pop on the day before Thanksgiving, as Daddy's Little Helper.

Dave's Supermarket, 11:30am, Ingredients for apple pie, last minute items

"Someday when you and your brother host Thanksgiving, you'll see how expensive it is to prepare this meal! It costs so much money. And the turkey was only forty-seven cents a pound."

"So let's not do it next year. We can take the money we would have spent, and make a donation to a shelter. Then we can just stay home and have a macaroni dinner." It killed me a little bit to say that. I love Thanksgiving and I love some of the special foods my father prepares on the holidays, like the Italian Wedding Soup and the Sweet Potato Casserole.

My father looked at me like I had just decided to give the turkey a prostate exam right there on the check-out line. "Oh Nancy. Shut up. Why don't you go out in the parking lot and hug a tree?" The woman behind us in line starts to laugh. "Look, even that woman is laughing at you."

"I'm pretty sure she's laughing at you. You know why this line is taking so long? It's because the people are actually stopping to talk to each other. Look! They're exchanging recipe tips!" I swear, it was the day before Thanksgiving, every cash register had a line a mile long and the woman checking out was telling the 75-year old cashier about how you can stick rosemary branches under the chicken skin while you're roasting the cut pieces. "This shit would never fly in New York!"

"No, that is because we are civil to each other here, not like in that horrible cesspool of a city you live in!" Then I wandered away to investigate something called "Pesto Clouds" in the freezer section and when I came back some woman was asking my father a question. He tried to answer her and she took it as an opening to start a whole bemoaning conversation. He said something else to dismiss the question and as he turned away, still with a smile on his face, he said "and no one gives a shit, lady," probably loud enough for her to hear. Nice, Pop. Very civil.

Linens N' Things, 12:30pm, Thanksgiving Table Cloth

After spending more time than was really necessary picking out a table cloth, we took it to the register and my father paid for it. That was all we bought. One table cloth. Out of habit, I said to the check out girl, "We don't need a bag for that."

My father gave me a death look. "We'll take a bag," he said.

As we walked away I said, "Are you happy? You got your bag? Was that too much for you to carry without the plastic bag?"

"I'm not walking out of the store without a plastic bag. People are going to think I stole this tablecloth."

"No one is going to think that! You have the receipt right in your hand."

"Shut up Nancy! he pretends to be me Hmm, should I hug this tree, or that tree over there?" he says, pointing at the two anemic looking trees in the parking lot.

"What is wrong with you? What do you do with all these plastic bags? I'm not even that green, but even I can see how wasteful it is."

My father takes out his cell phone and pretends to dial, "Hello Al Gore, it's Nancy. Are we hugging trees today? Is today tree hugging or saving the ozone layer? I need to know."

"And you drove here! All you have to do is carry the tablecloth from the store to the car, and then from the car to your front door. It's not like you have to schlep whatever you buy allover the city like I do. Why don't you just bring a tote bag from home?"

My father gives me super megadeath eyes. Eyes that say, I am not going to carry a totebag like some homosexual. "Where's my car?"

"Over there!" I start walking towards it.

"That's not my car!"

CVS 1:30pm, Two boxes of chocolates

We bought a box of Russell Stovers candy and a box of After Eight dinner mints for the table before the pies. "Let me buy the chocolates," I said at the counter.

"No," said Pop. He paid for the items and the woman put them in a bag.

"Excuse me," I said to the woman behind the counter. "Could we have an extra plastic bag?" I didn't even look at my father because I didn't want to see his death look.

"Sure," said the woman cheerfully. She did not think it was strange I needed two plastic bags for two small items. If I had asked for three bags, she would have handed them over without batting an eye. "Extra bags for everyone!" I yelled to Pop as we walked away.

"Shut up, Nancy. They are going to find your beaten and bloody body in the parking lot. Do you realize that we have to survive in the same house until Saturday?"

"But you love plastic bags!"

This is why Pop considers it a blessing a curse when I come home for a visit. Isn't that right, Pop? He's probably reading this blog right now. He asked me to bookmark this site for him on his computer when I was home. And then Little Brother taught him how to use YouTube. But that's a whole other story.