WOOLGATHER: BASEBALL IN THE SNOW

 

me: so you're gonna enter more of my dreams in future?

dad: i don't like how you treat mom.

me: my life is on hold.

dad: that's what happens sometimes in life. sudden unforeseen change of plans. control is a fantasy. you realize you will never have control of your life, right?

me: i never asked for caregiver to be my unexpected permanent job.

dad: this is what it means to be a son. you gotta stop letting mom get under your skin for EVERY LITTLE THING she does. no more insulting her softly under your breath. stop sarcastically snipping and swearing at her softly under your breath. stop with the snipe and sear. you gotta have the EXTRAORDINARY PATIENCE of fucking Job, that's your job.

Axl Rose: ...

me: i hate it when mom acts like she doesn't know what she's doing, saying, thinking, or where she is. 

dad: she's not acting, she's old.

me: i can't do the suitcase-in-the-car thing one more time...

dad: i'll buy you a new set of luggage each week, 7 suitcases a day...

dad: you can't use the '80s thing as an excuse to be mean. mom may not be an intellectual but she taught you what love is.

me: how do i approach nostalgia in future?

dad: in the future, you're not British. and you're certainly not Suzy Lu. you mean in the past...

me: the Jules Smith thing has been family'd up like a Sandman sew.

dad: nostalgia without love is unpurple.

Lindy Lenz: Jen? we're friends.

Jen R: Baltimore bezzers.

Lindy: do you think we'll reach the level of Meryl Streep and Robert Redford in Out of Africa? 

Jen: we need a WWI biplane for that. one WITHOUT a naked-woman decal on the side.

Lindy: that midair hand-hold was the most romantic scene in cinematic history.

Jen: that or Robert Redford washing Meryl Streep's hair by the river...

Tony Kornheiser: i'm what your dad would have been if he had lived.

dad: but with hair.

Erin Brockovich: things will only change once i become the CEO of PG&E...

me: and the aquarium.

dad: i mean we only went to the aquarium like 6 times. ONCE to Marineland...

Yogi Bear: ...

Michigan State: we're joining the United Nations against Trump.

me: and the Rigaudon.

dad: nah that was Mrs. Talbot. why did you hate me for making you learn that? it's a lively French folk dance, everybody's supposed to be happy.

Jacques Pepin: a smelly dance like French cheese.

me: it was the song they played sending prisoners to the gallows. ruined drums for me forever until Trent Reznor came along.

Mrs. Talbot: plus the sheet-music notation looks like a vagina...

"The Safety Dance" plays in the background.

dad: remember? 

me: what.

dad: remember what i taught you? get in a relationship if only for safety...

Safeway by the wood vat wine-barrel bath: if your lunch is at 9 AM, you work for Safeway...

Maiara Walsh: i need my vanity to be a square bottle of Jack Daniel's. and the tub in my bathroom to be a wood vat...

Townies: if Friends was Dawson's Creek...

Molly Ringwald at The Breakfast Club 40th Anniversary: it's a shame Townies didn't last, that Townies Christmas episode would have been something special...

sunshine sauce: that eggs Benedict you have the morning after fucking your soulmate the night before.

David Bowie on Mars: i checked. i flew around the galaxy. there are a couple of distant planets with trees, that's about it...

Goku, smiling and waving: hey David, have you checked here?...

Rory McIlroy: i'm using this rangefinder to find the nearest pub...

the portal: one team will have 0 players after this. Happy Easter.

Stargate SG-1: ...

Annie Adamson: i wanted to name Atticus after my favorite prog-rock band: Uriah Heep.........although Heep would have been unique...

Charles Dickens: cool and different. prog-rock to me was Liszt. why were '90s sitcoms and dramas obsessed with wedding planning?

Jaren: i wanted to name our son Yes.

Annie: at least name him a character from Venture Bros..

Michael Weiss: remember, people on Instagram are unstable...

Jaclyn Dunn: good Friday, everyone.........Good Friday, everyone...

Everton fan: in my defence, i'm 62 years old and mummy NEVER bought me Chicken McNuggets in my whole slagging life...

dad: you have to look on nostalgia as if it were baseball in the snow...

me: remember?

dad: what.

me: that rickety wood Little League dugout you took me to to learn baseball. the four basepaths never lined with fresh chalk. we'd field balls early Sunday morns, me with my tiny leather glove, you rolling a softball on the wet grass of the Left field.

dad: that outfield always had 11 green sprinklers nipping at my grey bulbous socked feet. that Pirates manager with the black beard looked scary but he saved a suicide so he must have been very velvety with his words.

Peewit emerges from the snowfield.

Peewit: speaking of beards.........now THIS was the '80s!!!

Peewit sports a beautiful long flowing blond beard and an umpire's pouch.

Peewit: see when you have a monk beard you can only be one thing in the outside world: a baseball umpire. but i was not granted even THAT allowance. the Pope held i looked menacing with a beard at the Diet Down Under. so i was reduced to being Teddy Ruxpin's father...

dad: the most GHASTLY injury you can sustain as a human is a scraped knee.

Jen R: right? and then you have to spray it with Binaca and it hurts like the motherfucking dickens.

me: i envision your car in my empty Carmel driveway. that's my Life Manifest.

Lindy Lenz: my car is a 1981 Datsun, the first anime car...

dad: remember, life is ever-changing...