Season 9, Week 8...
People always joke that I grew up with the Cleavers. (The family from Leave It to Beaver, for you youngsters.)
They're not really wrong, I guess. My home life as a kid really was quite similar to the idealized setting shown in 50's programming. My parents have been married over 50 years, Dad went off to work each day while Mom stayed at home, us kids never got in any real trouble growing up, we went to bed at ridiculously early times (by today's standards, anyway), and Mom always had dinner ready to go on the table when Dad walked in the door after work at 5:10 pm.
If you think that's an awfully precise time, you're right -- but it was true. Dad was part of a rideshare for all the years I lived at home as a kid. He'd drive the couple miles into town each morning to meet the rideshare van, then get dropped off in town at 5:00, and would be back at home at 5:10 every day. The rideshare van was almost otherworldly in its punctuality -- in all my years at home as a kid, I can probably count on one hand the number of times Dad was ever late.
So Mom would always have dinner ready to go for right when he arrived. If I or either of my brothers were late for any reason, we knew we'd be re-heating and serving our dinner ourselves; Mom wasn't a fan of the concept of 'holding' dinner. She was of the opinion that it was better to serve a meal at its piping-hot best to four people rather than holding it and having it be overdone/mushy/whatever for all five.
One day, my after-school activities bus had gotten delayed a bit, so I was about 20-25 minutes late for dinner. Everyone else (my parents and my two young brothers) was just finishing up their main dinner when I walked through the door. I waved a greeting as I went on through to my room to put away my bookbag and then wash up. As I came back to the kitchen to dish up my meal, Mom was scooping ice cream for dessert for my two brothers (ice cream wasn't Mom's favorite, and Dad, who was now reading the paper, preferred his ice cream later in the evening). While some families always have a little something for dessert every night after a meal, that was not the case in our home. Usually just once a week or so, we'd get a little treat after dinner -- maybe some apple crisp, or a dish of homemade pudding, or a warm slice of blueberry pie.
I sat down at the table and began eating. Mom set the ice cream bowls in front of my brothers and headed to the back of the house for some task while Dad flicked through the pages of the paper. With sly glances towards Dad, who was hidden behind his newspaper, the boys were soon engaged (as so easily happens) in an I Dare You type of game -- bet you won't eat your ice cream with shake of salt on it followed by I sure will, see, but I dare you to put salt *and* pepper on there and eat it and so on.
The game quickly changed to something more aptly named Thinking Up Something Really Awful to Put on the Ice Cream to Gross My Brother Out Without Any Notion of Actually Eating it Afterwards. Under guise of refilling their milk glasses, they each came back to the table with a few things from the fridge or cupboards. One of them would put on a squirt of salad dressing, then the other would toss on a pickle. Back and forth they went, each trying to 'one-up' the other with their selections. On went some cayenne powder, a dash of soy sauce, a bit of horseradish, and more -- all to increasingly ill-hidden giggles and snorts from the two of them. Through it all, I just went on eating my dinner. Dad continued to quietly read the paper.
With a final splurt from a tiny mustard bottle, their creations were complete. Laughing, they pushed their chairs back and gathered up their bowls, clearly planning to go dump them in the garbage.
"Sit."
The word was spoken calmly, but my father's voice always had power behind it. It was a not a suggestion and my brothers knew it. They stopped in their tracks, gave each other a freaked-out look, and slowly slid back into their chairs. Dad took a moment to finish whatever article he was reading, then folded the paper in half and placed it back on the table. He looked at each of the boys. He looked at each of their ice cream bowls. Back to the boys.
"Eat."
The boys got in about three seconds of protest before Dad held up his hand in the universal "I don't want to hear it" gesture. And when my Dad brought up the hand, you knew there was nothing to be done for it. The boys fell silent.
"Eat. You don't leave the table until you do." As the boys resigned themselves to their fate and picked up their spoons, Dad gathered up his paper and after-dinner coffee to move out to the living room, where he could be more comfortable but still see the dining room. He flipped through to the Sports section, but we all knew there was only once score of interest that day:
Dad: 1. Boys: 0.
This is my entry for the eighth week of Season 9 of therealljidol. The prompt this week was the phrase "Yes, and..." (a phrase used in improv to apparently mean 'accept and run with whatever the other person does'). I tagged it 'mostly non-fiction' because while the event did take place as described, I didn't actually witness it -- I am actually much younger than my brothers, and this happened when I was just a toddler. It worked better written as first person, though, so I just went with that.
As always, thanks for reading. :)