A commonist return

While I was at Maison Bean attending to important matters, Papa and his cronies were riding their bikes for 1,800 miles and consuming 23 bottles of vodka.  In the 32 days he was gone, there was only one trip to the ER and one run-in with the law (both related to the aforementioned vodka).  Twitter was strangely silent.  I received no word of Papa sightings, not even from the House of Hutchins whose coordinates weren’t far enough off of Papa’s route to prohibit a sighting.

While Papa was off on the Annual Geriatric Bike Ride, I Moose proofed, which is like baby proofing for the spawn of satan.  The kid could get in the refrigerator before he could walk.  He could also get in the oven, the dishwasher, the microwave, and the dryer, and I finally decided to take action.  A trip to the baby repository and 16 bucks later, I had locks that were so complicated I had to get the 14-year-old babysitter to help me install them.  The locks worked, and Moose went on to something bigger—the dilapidated antique storm door whose glass and screens he blithefully beat the hell out of. 

Papa arrived home amid much fanfare.  Moose sat happily in his lap and gazed at him.  Jax danced around singing, “Papa and the iPad are back,” and Rooster (Papa’s very nervous rat terrier) was oddly content for about 15 minutes.

Within two hours of his arrival, there was food in the house again and much to my extreme horror, a case of Oak Leaf cabernet sauvignon.  (In addition to vodka, Papa drinks red wine for his health—a $2.97 red wine that he buys at Wal-Mart and mixes with pineapple juice to make some bizarre sort of sangria.) 

Two days after his arrival, I found the Moose locks destroyed.  Within three days, Papa’s size 13’s had brought in at least a bucket of sand, and I had ram up my vacuuming schedule to pre-trip intervals.  Within five days the antique storm door was replaced with a new one, and the grout on the kitchen counter was once again coffee-stained and full of crumbs. 

There were also peanut butter and honey residues on surfaces that were supposed to be flat, and dinner was on the table every evening when I came home from work.  Football season had gotten underway, and on days when Auburn played, Papa ventured over to Mimi’s where they would drink martinis and jump up and down and scream at the television like they were possessed. 

The time fell back on a morning after a night of insomnia.  The little Beans had ignored my reminders about sleeping in and were up with the birds, ebullient and irritating.  I fell asleep on the couch for 10 minutes, and in that time, Moose destroyed the house.  I called Belle and begged her to bring me an iced venti mocha, and she took pity on me and obliged.

Unfortunately Papa arrived and made a derogatory remark about my $5 cup of coffee before I could take my first gulp.  You don’t get to be a 67-year-old twice-divorced slob without being opinionated.   And you don’t get to be a 40-plus unmarried woman without having super bitch tendencies.  I let Dave Ramsey  have it and then we had a royal Bean fight.  No crockery was broken but a few doors got slammed and then I gave him the silent treatment.

Monday was hell.  I was like the walking dead.  Papa and I were still laconic.  Jax got in trouble for some minor infraction and being the rocket scientist that I am, I removed Blues Clues  from the evening’s agenda. So there we were in the living room—Jax, Moose and I, and it was only 6:30 p.m.  I had an hour and a half to go before bedtime.  Papa sat in the office in front of his computer watching a movie.

“Jax, go ask Papa if it’s 8:00 yet.”

 “Papa, is it 8:00 yet?”

“No.”

“Mommy, Papa said, ‘No.’”

“Ask him why not.”

“Papa, why not?”

“Huh?”

“Mommy, he doesn’t know.”

“Ask Papa if we have any ice cream.”

“Papa, do we have any ice cream?”

“No.”

“Mommy, we don’t have any ice cream.”

“Ask Papa why not.”

“Papa, why not?”

“Because I don’t like ice cream.”

“Papa doesn’t like ice cream, Mommy.”

“Tell Papa that’s un-American.”

Jax returned to the office and tried unsuccessfully to pronounce “un-American.”

“What?” Papa asked.

Jax tried again.  Papa still didn’t understand, and Jax returned.

“Ask Papa if he’s a communist.”

“Papa, are you a commonist?”

“A what?” Papa asked.

“COMM U NIST!” I shouted.

Finally 8:00 arrived and the little Beans went to bed.  Papa emerged from the office with a peace treaty—a bag of frozen Reese’s cups—leftovers from Halloween that he had hidden in the garage freezer so we he wouldn’t eat them all in one sitting.

There aren’t many transgressions I wouldn’t forgive for Reese’s.  I defrosted them in the microwave. 

Things had returned to normal.

Note to my former Facebook friends:  I didn’t unfriend you.  Honestly.  Facebook accused me of practicing some sort of subterfuge and disabled my account. 

Okay, so I had two accounts.  I didn’t think that was a crime.  I have like 300 friends on my other account—from my seventh grade Sunday school teacher to my first boyfriend’s ex-wife.  It’s a little complicated, and I decided that I wanted to create a second account.

The thing that really hacks me off is that the Scrabble game I was playing with Wendy is MIA.