A Carol and Dean Christmas
Dec. 20th, 2009 09:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cabensonThere is something about the holiday season that tends to bring out the best in people. Or the worst, but for the purposes of this discussion, I am sticking with the best. People tend to smile a little more, say “Excuse me please” as they push past you to get their hands on this year’s trendy gifts, or invite complete strangers to dine with you and your family because you had reservations and they did not.
Guess which one happened to us?
Friday evening, the better half and I headed downtown to see Daddy #1, his wife, and my two aunts. They were all meeting for dinner before going to the Gaither Family Reunion concert and having not seen my aunts in a couple years, I was excited at the prospect of joining them and catching up.
We arrived shortly after Daddy #1 and sat down in a cramped booth that from the looks of the table setting, was expected to hold six of us, with an additional 2 seats on the outside of the table. From the moment I sat down, I knew I was in trouble. Low seats, long legs and a restricted space leads to muscle spasms, and I was very grateful to have taken a muscle relaxer before we got there. Oh, and did I mention there was no drinking?
So here are four of us already crammed into this booth when my aunts (plus one husband) arrive with two other people in tow. We immediately found out that the “Strangers” were named Carol and Dean and they were in town for The Concert all the way from…Cincinnati, OH. They wanted to eat before the concert and were concerned they would miss it when they tried to get a table and learned it would be a 45-60 minute wait. This was at 5:00pm, the concert started at 7:30. So my Aunt G, sweetheart that she is, invited them to join us. And for the next hour and a half, we learned everything there was to know about Carol and Dean. Jobs, children…did you all know that their first child was born at home? Or that Carol’s mother died in childbirth? And that Dean’s cat had died of The Cancer and was buried in a pet cemetery back at their place in Indiana, where they lived, oh about 100 years ago. Did I mention they were old?
It was really quite amusing. Every time my aunts would try to talk to me, Carol and Dean would interject with some random bit of trivia from their lives. Mrs. CB found her worse fears come to life when Carol (practically sitting on Mrs. CB’s lap) proudly blurted out that she was a retired teacher. “I taught primary, K through 3 for 39 years. Didn’t teach K though!” That admission seemed to give Dean permission to list off all the government jobs he held throughout the years and I am sure you will all be as stunned as I was to learn how he lost his job at the Post Office during the Kennedy years. And they must have thought I was old enough to be going to this concert (isn’t their a minimum age requirement of like 60?) cause the kept asking where I was sitting? I so wanted to say, "No, we are heading out to the seedy lesbian bar down the road." Did I mention there was no booze?
Best part was them trying to decide what to order. We were at Buca di Beppo which serves everything family style. We had to assure them that yes, one small order of pasta and meatballs would indeed fill their pieholes sufficiently and possibly allow someone else to get a word in edgewise. And if they had asked even one more time if we all thought the concert would last past 11:00pm or tell us how glad they were that they had decided to stay in town cause of “The Blizzard” that had been forecasted, I may have pried myself out of my restricted butt space and put them out of all of our misery.
Thankfully, they got their bill, exchanged email addresses and numbers with my Aunt P (I wonder if she gave them authentic info-I wouldn’t have) left a meager 10% tip, then abruptly left while the rest of us relaxed a little. And we all looked at each other and busted out laughing.
Well, I didn’t really get to catch up with my aunts like I had hoped to, and I did get a bit of a charley horse as we crammed 9 people around a booth no larger than my work cubicle, but I did get to experience the joy of helping our fellow man, crazy as they may be, out during a time of need. And isn’t that what we should be celebrating this season?
So Merry Christmas, Carol and Dean you crazy old motherfuckers you! And have a Happy New Year!
Guess which one happened to us?
Friday evening, the better half and I headed downtown to see Daddy #1, his wife, and my two aunts. They were all meeting for dinner before going to the Gaither Family Reunion concert and having not seen my aunts in a couple years, I was excited at the prospect of joining them and catching up.
We arrived shortly after Daddy #1 and sat down in a cramped booth that from the looks of the table setting, was expected to hold six of us, with an additional 2 seats on the outside of the table. From the moment I sat down, I knew I was in trouble. Low seats, long legs and a restricted space leads to muscle spasms, and I was very grateful to have taken a muscle relaxer before we got there. Oh, and did I mention there was no drinking?
So here are four of us already crammed into this booth when my aunts (plus one husband) arrive with two other people in tow. We immediately found out that the “Strangers” were named Carol and Dean and they were in town for The Concert all the way from…Cincinnati, OH. They wanted to eat before the concert and were concerned they would miss it when they tried to get a table and learned it would be a 45-60 minute wait. This was at 5:00pm, the concert started at 7:30. So my Aunt G, sweetheart that she is, invited them to join us. And for the next hour and a half, we learned everything there was to know about Carol and Dean. Jobs, children…did you all know that their first child was born at home? Or that Carol’s mother died in childbirth? And that Dean’s cat had died of The Cancer and was buried in a pet cemetery back at their place in Indiana, where they lived, oh about 100 years ago. Did I mention they were old?
It was really quite amusing. Every time my aunts would try to talk to me, Carol and Dean would interject with some random bit of trivia from their lives. Mrs. CB found her worse fears come to life when Carol (practically sitting on Mrs. CB’s lap) proudly blurted out that she was a retired teacher. “I taught primary, K through 3 for 39 years. Didn’t teach K though!” That admission seemed to give Dean permission to list off all the government jobs he held throughout the years and I am sure you will all be as stunned as I was to learn how he lost his job at the Post Office during the Kennedy years. And they must have thought I was old enough to be going to this concert (isn’t their a minimum age requirement of like 60?) cause the kept asking where I was sitting? I so wanted to say, "No, we are heading out to the seedy lesbian bar down the road." Did I mention there was no booze?
Best part was them trying to decide what to order. We were at Buca di Beppo which serves everything family style. We had to assure them that yes, one small order of pasta and meatballs would indeed fill their pieholes sufficiently and possibly allow someone else to get a word in edgewise. And if they had asked even one more time if we all thought the concert would last past 11:00pm or tell us how glad they were that they had decided to stay in town cause of “The Blizzard” that had been forecasted, I may have pried myself out of my restricted butt space and put them out of all of our misery.
Thankfully, they got their bill, exchanged email addresses and numbers with my Aunt P (I wonder if she gave them authentic info-I wouldn’t have) left a meager 10% tip, then abruptly left while the rest of us relaxed a little. And we all looked at each other and busted out laughing.
Well, I didn’t really get to catch up with my aunts like I had hoped to, and I did get a bit of a charley horse as we crammed 9 people around a booth no larger than my work cubicle, but I did get to experience the joy of helping our fellow man, crazy as they may be, out during a time of need. And isn’t that what we should be celebrating this season?
So Merry Christmas, Carol and Dean you crazy old motherfuckers you! And have a Happy New Year!
