Knock, Knock

We started our weekend by going out with friends.  We wanted sympathy for having to deal with a control freak.  Instead, we got a joke.

“Knock-knock.”

“Who’s there?”

“Control Freak . . . Now you say, ‘Control Freak who?’”

Friends are good.  They keep your mind occupied and make you feel you’re not as weird as you think you are.  Maybe that’s just our friends.  We tend to find friends who make us feel normal, since most people we know make us feel weird. 

Charlie says, “There’s confidence in numbers.”  Separately, we go all day appearing normal and hiding our sense of humor.  When we get together, we’re those people you see laughing so hard everyone else has to look to see what’s so funny. 

Charlie and I tell people we had to marry each other.  We would have continued to drive other people crazy with our loud laughs, among other things.  “I knew you were here,” people tell me at parties.  “I could hear you laughing from across the room.” 

Charlie says he’s heard comments like that his whole life, too. “I don’t know why people don’t like to hear laughing,” he says.  “Laughing is funny.  All my friends laugh loud.”

We laughed loud all weekend.  First, we went to a pub where we laughed so hard people on both sides of us took turns staring.  We stayed there way too long, laughing.  This is why we tip so well.

The next night we thought we’d be safe and stay in the suburbs.  We were invited over to a couple’s house for dinner.  Halfway through, the 18 year-old kid came home and hid out far away from us, playing on the computer.

His parents said, “We’ve been trying to talk him into coming out and introducing himself, but he won’t do it.  He said, ‘What are you guys laughing so hard about?  Are you drunk?’  We told him we haven’t even started drinking yet, just wait.

Charlie saw the kid peeking through the blinds once and decided this was an invitation to introduce ourselves.  He gathered up all the goofy adults and walked into his darkened room.  He was talking to his girlfriend on the phone in a little voice like baby talk.  He turned to see us all standing there.

Charlie said, “Hi, I’m Charlie.  This is Jill, my wife.”  He continued to introduce a bunch of us adults as the kid stared, his mouth hanging open. 

We could hear the girlfriend still talking on the phone, but unfortunately we couldn’t make out what she was saying.  The kid didn’t seem to have anything to say to us.  We didn’t care. 

Our main goal was to make sure the kid didn’t come out and make us quiet down.  He didn’t.  He left very soon after our introduction.  It’s important you give kids a reason to want to move out or they’d live at home forever.  We felt like we did the parents a big favor.  Don’t mention it.

We managed to squeeze in a little work on the house one day.  It was so hot I couldn’t find my gardening joy I usually have when I dig around in the dirt. 

My nice dirt disappeared and in its place was hot, dry dust with dead, white weeds.  Anytime I did something with a shovel, I’d get my own personal dust storm.  Pick-axing made me look downright scary once the dirt mixed with sweat.

The skateboarders came out and worked for exactly an hour.  They decided the hose was more fun than dirt, particularly when the cat came nearby.  Dry dirt digging in exactly 100 degree heat isn’t what they woke up for.  What they woke up for in the first place is anyone’s guess.   The cat still won’t come around when they’re outside.

The skateboarders brought their dirt inside and did their best to bother Charlie.  He was having none of their whining.  The longer they stood there, the more Charlie made them work.  Charlie hates to see young, energetic muscle power go to waste.

“Pick up that end,” he told the skateboarders.  They were too tired to complain, and too tired to tell Charlie to shut up so he decided to give them a lesson in kitchen cabinet construction.

“When you install cabinets, you’re supposed to find the highest point on the floor,” he said.  “Then you mark that point on the wall.  You draw a horizontal, level line through that point.  That’s the line where your base cabinets are supposed to line up.”

The skateboarders weren’t listening, or maybe they were.  How can you tell the difference? 

“When you have a floor like a roller coaster,” Charlie continued, “it’s difficult to figure out which high point is the highest.  I had a high point, but I forgot to measure the cabinets which elbow out to the middle of the kitchen.  The middle of the kitchen floor is higher than my old high point.”

Charlie duct-taped two levels together to make one long one so he could measure.  The skateboarders helped him shim the cabinets and get the whole base assembly straight and level. 

“I spent all day figuring out the highest high point anywhere in the kitchen,” Charlie said to the skateboarders.  They were either dying from the heat or from the kitchen construction conversation. 

“It wasn’t that hard, but other people don’t have to do this.  Some people don’t have houses built on a dry creek bed.  I long for new construction.”

The skateboarders checked the level one last time.  “Done,” they said.  They ran upstairs and shut the door.  We didn’t see them again all day. 

I stayed to watch Charlie, since my only other choice was to go back outside into the dust bowl.  He didn’t know I was there.  He started talking to himself.  “I’m home free now,” Charlie said. “I’ve got my reference point.  I can keep anything straight.”

I can’t.  If I could keep straight-faced when he starts talking to himself, I might learn something.  I can’t.  I wasn’t made for being straight-faced.  Neither was Charlie.

We cleaned up and went to a group get-together.  As soon as we arrived, Charlie started cutting up and being unusually goofy.  I would have blamed it on the heat, but he was inside straightening cabinets.  Now he can’t even act straight.

There were a lot of people, so they soon ran out of diet Pepsi.  Charlie was thirsty, so he had several full-sugar regular Pepsis.  “I have a sugar buzz like you can’t believe,” he said.  “I think that’s what’s contributing to my being such a smart-ass tonight.”

“Your smart-ass behavior started long before you started drinking regular Pepsi,” I told him.  The kitchen cabinets aren’t the only things that need straightening out.

Charlie sat next to one of his friends, Daren.  A woman I’ve never seen before walked up to our group.  Our group is one several groups at our church who get together for dinner once a month.  Even though we were randomly grouped, our group is the most fun.  We’re the loudest and wildest, even if we’re not the youngest or largest.  Even the singles want to be in our group. 

The woman I’ve never seen before started talking like she knew us. I’d say she’s a control freak, but Charlie wouldn’t like that.  If she’s a control freak, she’s not doing it right.  Control freaks are supposed to get mad when you don’t do what they say.  We didn’t do anything she said, we teased her endlessly, and she only laughed harder.

Daren, Charlie’s buddy, started making comments under his breath that only Charlie could hear.  Daren knew Charlie would repeat everything Daren said, which he did.  Charlie and I will say anything as long as somebody laughs. 

The imitation-control-freak woman said, “Everyone wants to be in your group.  We’re going to have to trade some people.  For example, Sherri and Dave want to be in your group.” 

“This group has a lot of baggage,” Charlie or maybe Daren said.  “The kind of baggage you only get from being married several times.  Single people would never get married if they joined our group.”

“If you’ve only been married once before,” someone else said, “you can’t join, either.  Not enough baggage.  If that person was bipolar, however, you can join.  Bipolar creates a lot of baggage so it counts twice.”

“How about if you’ve been married only once, but he was a narcissitic sociopath?  Does that count?”

“That works, especially if you had kids together and they’re angry you couldn’t endure just to make their lives easier.”

This went on for a while.

The imitation-control-freak woman cut us off.  “Don’t blame me,” she said.  “It was Gary’s idea.” 

Gary is part of our group, but he was at that moment sneaking around in the house looking for hidden ice cream.  Gary and the other men in our group had a complicated hand signal system worked out so they could find the desserts and sneak them before anyone else had a chance.

Under his breath, Daren started talking like a sports club owner on trading day.  He said, “We’ll trade Gary for Sherri and Dave, plus 100K.  Gary’s out.”

Charlie, of course, repeated it.  The imitation-control-freak woman still wasn’t blowing up.  If she were a control freak, we would have heard an earful by now. “It’s not my idea,” she said. 

Daren quietly said, “You know that sermon the Pastor gave about failure last Sunday?  That sermon was about us.” 

Charlie again repeated it.  The rest of our group remembered pieces of the sermon and quoted it, applying it to ourselves.  We were almost crying, we were laughing so hard. 

The imitation-control-freak woman wouldn’t give up.  When we calmed down, she looked past Daren to a few women sitting next to him.  She said, “You gals have all signed up for the women’s conference, haven’t you?”

They didn’t say anything.  None of us did.  We hadn’t signed up and we weren’t planning to.  I guess she thought she’d make us feel guilty.  She didn’t know us at all. 

In a guilty voice, Daren said, “I haven’t.”  We all laughed so hard, the imitation-control-freak woman finally gave up on us and started laughing, too.  “I teach 60 needy and underpriviledged kindergarteners and you guys are worse,” she said.  “I want to join your group.”

We told her she had to be married first.  Charlie noticed a guy sitting at a nearby table and said, “You can be in our group if you marry this guy.”  The guy looked over at the woman and started to smile.  “You make a cute couple,” Daren said.  “People in our group have less in common than you two.  Now both of you can be in our group.”

Gary stood in the doorway and gave Charlie the secret ice cream hand signal.   To the other guys in our group, Charlie said, “Let’s roll!”  They ran inside like the house was on fire. 

All of us women stayed seated and rolled our eyes.  The imitation-control-freak woman, now having a conversation with the single man we decided she should marry, looked, hesitated, and returned to her conversation.  She knew she was over her head.

Charlie returned with ice cream stuck in his mustache.  He acted like the dish he held was his first, unaware that his face betrayed him. 

We started laughing at him.  “You know what causes that?” Daren’s wife said.  “Big bites.”

While she was saying this, Charlie took a huge bite.  All he could manage saying was, “Huh?”

Daren’s wife said, “Daren’s Mom used to get food all over her face when she ate.  Not when she was young, just when she was getting on.”

“It’s facial hair,” someone else said.  “That’s what does it.”

“You’re right,” Daren’s wife said.  “Once Daren’s Mom shaved her beard, she never had a problem.”

Out of maybe seventy people, we ended up leaving last.  The owners of the home, Gary and his wife, are thinking of scraping off this beautiful character-filled 1938 home and rebuilding. 

We got so excited about this idea, we kept eating everything sweet that they put in front of us.  “We don’t want this stuff in the house,” they said.  “We’ll just end up eating it.”   

When we finally rolled home, the skateboarders were all excited and talking more than they had all day.

“Look!” they said.  “We made tattooes!”

They pulled up their sleeves and showed us brightly colored hearts and things that looked like kindergarten linoleum block prints all over their arms. 

“We were bored.  One of our friends said, ‘Do Arts and Crafts.’  So we did.”  Friends are important in many ways, I thought.  When you’re bored and 17, they teach you things like Arts and Crafts. 

“You cut apples in half, cut out a design and put food coloring on it.  After you tattoo yourself, you can eat the apple.  Did you know red food coloring tastes like cinnamon?  All the rest taste like throw-up.”

“No, I didn’t know that,” Charlie said.  “Nor did I want to.”

“You ate food coloring and it isn’t all over your face?” I asked.

“Yeah,” the skateboarders said.

“That’s more than Charlie could do all night.  You guys sure are growing up.”  And if they don’t move out in a year or two, we’ll start having loud parties of our own.  They’ll move out for sure.

A little help? [] 6:00:23 PM