Thursday, June 10, 2004
Comedy in the midst of chaos
It's times like this I wish I had a tape recorder, because then I could transcribe a la Sars the conversation I just had with Mer, my crazy friend in Brooklyn. From waiting for her psycho friend to move out of her crib to faking an orgasm, the comedy never stops.
She and I also agreed that the weekend she came out here was probably the most surreal event on the face of the planet; Dad died the night she arrived.
She and I also agreed that the weekend she came out here was probably the most surreal event on the face of the planet; Dad died the night she arrived.
Labor Day weekend, 2001: Dad was pretty much comatose by the Monday before, so we had hospice set up him at home; he sure as hell didn't want to be in the hospital any longer than necessary, anyway. So we knew it was an any-moment deal, and I told Mer that, to which she offered to cancel the trip. I wouldn't hear of it, though, because I might not have known when Dad was going to die, but I did know that I was going to need someone to lighten my psychic load when it happened.
Fast forward to that Thursday: Dad had pretty much lost consciousness, and his temperature was starting to rise, which apparently is one of the final signs that the end is nigh. I'd brought Rube over to see him -- they totally loved each other -- and I picked up my young cousin (Crazy Aunt's daughter, 14 at the time) to see him, too. But signs not necessarily being indicative of anything concrete, my young cousin and I took off for O'Hare to pick Mer up from her 7:30 flight, thinking that Dad was in a holding pattern and that it was going to be smooth sailing to the airport.
Except it wasn't, because traffic was backed up at the Spaghetti Bowl, which is at least 20 miles from the airport. And I should probably mention that I didn't tell my crazy aunt that I was taking her child with me, because that'll be important later.
So after fielding a frantic call from Mer wondering where I was and trying to put off the wrath of my crazy aunt for hijacking her daughter to another state (!), we found Mer in the bar. We hugged, I told her how awesome she looked because she did, she told me I hadn't changed one bit, and we started heading for the car. But as we headed for the car, the weather turned wicked and started torrentially pouring -- lightining, thunder, the works. And as were walking through the torrential pouring and lightning and thunder, we realize that we can't find the damn car. "You know, this is right out of a Seinfeld episode, (Broad)," said Mer, to which I replied, "Right. All I need now is to get the call from Ma that Dad died ..."
Now, I'm sure y'all are going to be like, "No WAY! That totally didn't happen!" and I wouldn't have believed it either if didn't happen to me, but no sooner did that come out of my mouth, damned if that phone didn't ring with Mother hysterical on the other end.
Standing there in the torrential pouring drenched through to the bone, I lost it for a few moments, then I called my one best friend to start making the phone calls to all my other friends. Oh, and no, we hadn't found the car yet, so we walked around awhile longer trying to find it. At that point I was about as useless as tits on bull, so we had to call security, who, after 20 minutes of driving us around FINALLY got us to the vehicle. (I won't even go into the nightmare that was, and how he wanted me to fill out a customer service card about his service.) So we finally get out of the parking garage about 10:15-ish, only to discover that the pouring had been so torrential, it flooded the underpass to get out of the airport.
Now, say what you want about souls and the afterlife and whatever, but I firmly believe that, realizing his one and only daughter has a habit of getting herself into fucked-up adventures such as this, he put off going to heaven to make sure the Corolla (the '95 one, not the old one) and I, along with my passengers, made it through the torrential pouring before the airport people shut down the airport, which they did about 10 minutes after we got out.
We went straight to my parents, where two of my aunts, an uncle, a cousin and a hospice nurse were waiting for me to get there so they could call the ambulance to take Dad to the funeral home. The first thing out of my mouth when I saw him? "He looks like a fucking concentration camp victim!" as I burst into tears. Mer, in the meantime, was standing there, embarrassed as fuck, wondering if she should stay or not. I begged her to, because like I've said before, if it weren't for her, I would've been a complete and utter disaster. Oh, and my one aunt and uncle took my young cousin home, but not after my crazy aunt thoroughly tore me a new one for, again, hijacking her daughter out of state. To Illinois. She was pissed off enough at me that she didn't come to Dad's wake, although I think she'd also just had surgery on her foot or something.
It probably doesn't sound like a very funny story, but looking back on it now, I could see Dad standing there, shaking his head: "Yep, this could only happen to you." And you'd realize just how funny it actually was.
Oh, whatEVER.
Fast forward to that Thursday: Dad had pretty much lost consciousness, and his temperature was starting to rise, which apparently is one of the final signs that the end is nigh. I'd brought Rube over to see him -- they totally loved each other -- and I picked up my young cousin (Crazy Aunt's daughter, 14 at the time) to see him, too. But signs not necessarily being indicative of anything concrete, my young cousin and I took off for O'Hare to pick Mer up from her 7:30 flight, thinking that Dad was in a holding pattern and that it was going to be smooth sailing to the airport.
Except it wasn't, because traffic was backed up at the Spaghetti Bowl, which is at least 20 miles from the airport. And I should probably mention that I didn't tell my crazy aunt that I was taking her child with me, because that'll be important later.
So after fielding a frantic call from Mer wondering where I was and trying to put off the wrath of my crazy aunt for hijacking her daughter to another state (!), we found Mer in the bar. We hugged, I told her how awesome she looked because she did, she told me I hadn't changed one bit, and we started heading for the car. But as we headed for the car, the weather turned wicked and started torrentially pouring -- lightining, thunder, the works. And as were walking through the torrential pouring and lightning and thunder, we realize that we can't find the damn car. "You know, this is right out of a Seinfeld episode, (Broad)," said Mer, to which I replied, "Right. All I need now is to get the call from Ma that Dad died ..."
Now, I'm sure y'all are going to be like, "No WAY! That totally didn't happen!" and I wouldn't have believed it either if didn't happen to me, but no sooner did that come out of my mouth, damned if that phone didn't ring with Mother hysterical on the other end.
Standing there in the torrential pouring drenched through to the bone, I lost it for a few moments, then I called my one best friend to start making the phone calls to all my other friends. Oh, and no, we hadn't found the car yet, so we walked around awhile longer trying to find it. At that point I was about as useless as tits on bull, so we had to call security, who, after 20 minutes of driving us around FINALLY got us to the vehicle. (I won't even go into the nightmare that was, and how he wanted me to fill out a customer service card about his service.) So we finally get out of the parking garage about 10:15-ish, only to discover that the pouring had been so torrential, it flooded the underpass to get out of the airport.
Now, say what you want about souls and the afterlife and whatever, but I firmly believe that, realizing his one and only daughter has a habit of getting herself into fucked-up adventures such as this, he put off going to heaven to make sure the Corolla (the '95 one, not the old one) and I, along with my passengers, made it through the torrential pouring before the airport people shut down the airport, which they did about 10 minutes after we got out.
We went straight to my parents, where two of my aunts, an uncle, a cousin and a hospice nurse were waiting for me to get there so they could call the ambulance to take Dad to the funeral home. The first thing out of my mouth when I saw him? "He looks like a fucking concentration camp victim!" as I burst into tears. Mer, in the meantime, was standing there, embarrassed as fuck, wondering if she should stay or not. I begged her to, because like I've said before, if it weren't for her, I would've been a complete and utter disaster. Oh, and my one aunt and uncle took my young cousin home, but not after my crazy aunt thoroughly tore me a new one for, again, hijacking her daughter out of state. To Illinois. She was pissed off enough at me that she didn't come to Dad's wake, although I think she'd also just had surgery on her foot or something.
It probably doesn't sound like a very funny story, but looking back on it now, I could see Dad standing there, shaking his head: "Yep, this could only happen to you." And you'd realize just how funny it actually was.
Oh, whatEVER.
