Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Tortures of the Damned

My father was just reminiscing about a letter he wrote to the Japanese Prime Minister 15 years ago after having found out that Japan was the number one producer of child pornography. He stated therein that he hoped the purveyors of said pornography "would find their children f&^ked in the ass with 14-inch pipes." "I didn't receive a response," he mused.

Thereafter, he checked the fluids in my car. It is cold and rainy out.

It turns out that I am low on several vital liquids and he is going to the store to obtain them, "but first I am going to put on a very thick sweater THAT IS ALSO ON FIRE. How f*^cking cold can it get?!"

Monday, February 23, 2009

Erm

My mom just had my dad pour hydrogen peroxide down her ear with a funnel.

Engineering Take Two

Hoorah! See "Excellent Developments" from this same blog. Today, rather than fix a computer, my father has decided to remove our useless old TV and move our giant, terrifying TV to its place.

Ironically, on this day of moving and twisting, I have just had five shots in the deep muscles of my shoulders. Can this be a coincidence?

So far, he has tested every plug in the circuit breaker, despite the fact that I have assured him only two come from the back of the TV. And he has given himself an electric shock.

My shoulders hurt.

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Miss Amanda Jones

My father received a note at his psychotherapy practice from someone named "Mandie." He did not know who this was but thought he should know. He did not want to phone the number himself, in case he did not realize who he was talking to. This is where I came in.

"Can you call this number," he asks me. "And ask for Amanda, but when they press you, give a last name. Say, I am calling for Amanda whomever. Then SHE will, I hope, say, 'This is Mandie X.'"

I agree to this. Dial number.

"Hello," says a very suspicious and gravelly female voice that does not match the smiley face on the note.

"Hi," I say brightly. "May I speak to Amanda?"

"Who is this?"

"Uh, Teddy" I say.

"From where?" even more suspiciously.

"I'm a friend of Amanda's," I say.

"A friend from where?" she barks.

"Um, just a friend. Is this Amanda Nelson's phone?" I say.

"No. This is Mandie's mother and I find it very strange that someone is calling my seventeen-year-old daughter at this hour" she says. It is 7:20 p.m. "Who are you?"

"I'm very sorry ma'am, I guess I just have the wrong number," I say.

"WHAT IS YOUR NAME?"

"Uh, Teddy. Teddy Jones. Ok, I guess I have the wrong number. Bye." I hang up and promptly change my voicemail to have the robot voice say only my number. Gack.

"Ah ..." says my father. "I thought it was someone normal but I think I DO know who that is ..."

"And her psychological problem is her mother?" I say.

"Mmm," he says. "She is a truck driver. Literally."

Mmm indeed. Thanks, Dad.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Smoking Part II

Back to my brother who is quitting smoking. I texted him that Jay Mohr (who people sometime say he looks like) is looking chunky and I wondered if he was quitting smoking.

"I'm losing weight" he texted. "Nothing goes in this body but lozenges."

He said he didn't even need to sleep. I asked if he could fly.

"Probably."

I repeated this to my father. He pointed out that nicotine lozenges COULD BE unsafe when used in excess.

I forwarded this warning to my brother.

"Allegedly," he wrote. "But I've got it balanced."

"With what?"

"[nicotine] patches."

Mental Health

I got my father a stuffed bear to give to a one-year-old today. I just went in to ask him if the bear was acceptable. The bear was seated across the bed from him with its paws waving in his direction. My father was taking notes on a legal pad. His ashtray was between them.

I hope the bear feels better.

Strange Things Happen To Me

Allegedly, my father has a private psychotherapy practice.

He supposedly sees clients at least three nights a week.

He has not been paid since June of 2008.

"___" my mother said tonight. "Why haven't you brought home any money? You haven't produced any money in more than six months yet you go out and see clients."

"Strange things happen to me!" says Peabo. "I am just as surprised by this as you. I do not understand it."

"But how can you work and bill and not get any money?" she asks. I cover my eyes.

"I AM JUST AS SURPRISED BY THIS AS YOU ARE!" he says. "Strange things happen to me. I get pages and pages of documents and they want me to do things, like answer an interrogatory."

"So you don't open them?"

"I do!" he says. "I just have trouble following up on them."

He pauses. "And for example the other day, I got a call from a woman and she left 9 or 10 numbers."

I pointed out that there were typically 10 numbers in a phone number. "I don't know, there were 19 or so numbers. I could not understand her message. Then, she called again. This time the number was normal. So I texted her."

Red flag.

"I texted her the amount her husband owed. Then, she asks, can he fix your car instead. I said, 'No, and I will be - pleasantly, in parentheses - surprised if he pays anything. And that must have offended him because I have not heard from him since."

At this point, I had to leave the room. Still, I could hear the conversation continue. Though it shifted subjects dramatically.

"If I look down, and I have pulled my leg up as high as I can, my foot is one inch off the ground," he says.

"What does that mean?" my mother says?

"It means f&^king potholders can trip me up. That's f&%ked up."

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Memory

After a brief stop at home, my father drove me to interview a candidate for my college. It was also brief as I was afraid to leave him outside long. He was, needless to say, in the middle of a surreptitious and suspicious telephone conversation when I surprised him. We proceeded to a restaurant nearby which we had last visited two years ago.

A waitress took our orders. Our food arrived. After about 45 minutes, she attempted to remove Peabo's salad.

"Can I take this?" she said.

Faster than lightning, his hand grabbed the plate.

"No," he hissed. "I'm not done."

"Mmm. Yes," she said.

"I remember you. You did this last time. I've been waiting for you."

Not unfoundedly, Peabo looked aghast. His eyes actually popped out of his head.

"Yes, you almost bit my arm off then," she said evenly. Peabo looked terrified. I started to laugh. It was in fact the same woman and he had done the very same thing. Over the course of the next hour and 15 minutes, Peabo worked himself into a frenzy of paranoia, regret, and indignance, convinced alternately that she was poisoning us, etc. He became so anxiety ridden that his throat closed and he had to vomit twice. Meanwhile, my younger brother (who has just quit smoking) was sending me regular updates. This had begun at the tooth engineer's "office" (crematorium). He was at a Chinese New Year's Party but had "forgotten how to mingle" and so was seated on a chair in the middle of the room. Alone. And he had "checked his lozenges at the door."

I continued to apprise him of the Peabo situation. Half of me desperately wanted to leave, half of me was more and more delighted with each table pass "Amy" made.

Eventually Peabo agreed to end things. He carefully left her a large tip and drew a smiley face on the receipt. This took at least five minutes. He then duplicated them on his copy. I went to the front, panting for the door. No. He laboriously went OVER TO the waitress and told her (apparently) that he had left her a smiley face. More than two hours after entering, he finally made it out of the restaurant.

"Man," Peabo said. "I just did not know what to do. I wanted to leave but I didn't want to have to be seen leaving. I wanted one of those f&^king whaddya call thems, teleporters. I wanted my atoms to disintegrate and reform outside the restaurant in my preferred appearance."

Out of the mouths of ...

I spent seven hours with my father yesterday.

First, we went to his fascist Swiss ... well, I'm not sure WHAT he is, as he was purportedly going to look at my teeth, but spent a great deal of time talking about hating dentists. He has fairly severe OCD. The Pacific Northwest winters rain a lot of debris onto property, but his back patio was without an item on it. His grass appeared to be trimmed by elves hourly.

He examined my father first. His lips curled in disgust. Peabo had a bone spur protruding. Apparently DENTISTS often leave such things in when they crush the teeth (Do say this in a heavy Swiss accent. Do have a manicured beard that matches your lawn.). I started laughing uncontrollably at the dentist diatribe and my father's evident love for said tooth engineer. He next examined my mouth and proclaimed it perfect. This was another opportunity for jibes at dentists.

"A dentist would put expensive caps on your teeth ... Caps made in China, most likely."

"With cadmium in them. Probably."

No, no he would not do that. A little space is healthy.

He tried to find a photographic example of what dentists would do. He methodically paged through five magazines while we waited. No example suited him.

"I have enough time to go through all of these. I haff not found just the right picture yet," he said very calmly.

"No, no, that's fine!" I said leaping toward the door. By this time, even Peabo was following me.

Balance

My mother just fell off the exercise ball again. This time was a bit more violent.

Simultaneously, my nephew fell over a poker in the other room that should have been a good four feet out of his path.

It was very, very hard not to set a bad example and laugh.

Thursday, February 05, 2009

Sharks

At the age of 65, my father is teething.

He has a new molar.

No, really.

"It's sharp," he says. "I can cut s^&t with it. Like, silk."

"Steak," my mother asks?

"If it were thin enough."