Now I'm Eight Dear God Who Cares

Mom and I were at Perkins to celebrate the eighth anniversary of this blog.

I looked around as we sat down. "It's getting increasingly unlikely that crowds of people will pop out and scream HURRAH and HUZZAH."

Mom looked at me. "Why would that happen?"

"You know, to celebrate the... Ech. Never mind."

I took off my Breen mask. Mom was still wearing her Cris Collinsworth mask, staring out at the world with terrified, aggrieved eyes. 

"You can take off your mask, Mom."

"Can I?"

"Yes."

With reluctance Mom pushed her mask under her chin. She glanced around for any sign of the virus. All she saw was a 106-year-old fella in the next booth; he gave Mom the cutie eye.

"I didn't have my mask on when I lost Bing this morning," Mom said. "Bing just got away from me, and he wasn't wearing his mask or his leash. He was going off at the speed of fat and I was loping after him, trying to get his waddle pointed back north to the house. But thankfully no one noticed I didn't have on a mask."

"The police were probably too busy shooting people. But these masks have one advantage, at least. It's like it's Halloween all the year round! Isn't that corrupt?"

"I don't like it. And Trump is an ass. He's so stupid. And he caused this."

(I maintained a stony silence in order to give the impression I'm MAGA heh heh.)

"Aren't you going to say anything? Don't you care about your country?"

"Naw. Hey, look, I found this old picture of me and Chris and Grandma not wearing masks."

"Moo-om! Grandma won't let me have a drink

 of her sour mash bourbon! And it's ten am!"

(What in God's name am I holding in my right hand?!?

 Leave speculations and theories in the comments.)

Mom took off her glasses, frowned, and then held the glasses up. "You know, every time I fall my glasses fly off my face--but the glasses don't have even a scratch! It's like my guardian angel is watching out for my glasses to make sure they don't break."

"So... your guardian angel doesn't care if you break your face, but is concerned about your bill at LensCrafter? Are you sure your guardian angel is board certified?"

"Don't be a jackass."

I pointed up at the header. "Mm? Mm?"

Mom wrenched her neck. "Is a murder hornet up there?"

"No, just a manslaughter hornet."

After we put in our orders for Slop le Greasie Du Jour, Mom brought up her sundry problems with her chess games.

"I don't understand," she said. "The king gets on a green square, but then the pawn gets on the white square and I'm hemmed in, I think, before I can even couple. And how does the horsey move again?"

"My chess coach has been teaching me about swinging in chess. Finally, we're getting to the good stuff!"

"Swinging. What does he mean?"

"His English isn't that good, but I think he means swinging to either side of the board. Or something about car keys in a bowl. Check and mate. Meanwhile Pat has been getting into adventures..."

"I don't--"

"So Pat was out walking his dog in the park and he noticed some guy with his lab off leash. Pat went over to tell the guy that he should leash his dog, whereupon the guy politely told Pat to bite him or his dog, dealer's choice. After that, it seems--according to the news account--Pat followed the guy home and rang the guy's bell. The guy answered, and Pat politely told the man that a) don't ever have your dog off leash ever again, and 2) I know where you live. The guy/man pushed the screen door into Pat and told Pat to quote get off my porch, faggot. That was when Pat went into high ka-rate mode. He punched the rogue off-leasher in the solar plexus, hitting the tip of the guy's liver(?), and made him turn green before he hit the ground. Pat stood over the guy and said don't let it happen again or it'll be worse for you next time, and then ran off. Another day for a hero!"

"I don't like their cheeseburgers here, but I'll have one I suppose. What are you having?"

"A good listener."

"What?"

"Nothing. Things have been so boring at work that Todd has told me about the lugnut he has in his *whistle two-tone*, or at least used to, but with the library closed he can go down into the public bathroom in the basement and experience the exhilaration of peeing at a urinal, since his skin is, uh, sliced around his urethra and his pee goes off on a frolic of its own."

"Maybe I'll get a slice of pie. Will you share a slice with me?"

"And I've been up to my comedy antics, erasing a key letter from the whiteboard in the break room. So far it hasn't lightened the mood or sliced morale."

"Nice! I won't need to go to Walgreen's after work now."

After the ordeal of our meal, we left and passed by two soldiers in fatigues. Mom stopped to admire their eating habits, practically flirting with them as if they were a combination of Cris Collinsworth.

"They were hungry, those young men! They were really eating a lot."

"Yes, well, they need their energy to kill people. And meet them."

Seriously, what was I holding in my hand? Was it something we only knew about in the eighties??