All Because of Lombardi’s Damn Smile?
My first day with Mom and Dad ends after our long drive north, some delicious food from the hotel restaurant, and my passing out in the hotel bed.
In the middle of the night, I wake to Dad slamming dresser drawers. "Dad, what in the hell are you doing?" I ask, slightly annoyed.
"I'm trying to find a blanket."
"Just take the comforter off my bed" I reply.
"No, Née, I'll just use a towel" he innocently responds. I'm too exhausted to even care to attempt to figure out or ask what purpose this towel will serve when he was originally seeking a blanket. I just sigh and roll over hoping I can sleep.
I wake later to the sound of oddly strained but steady breathing. From the dim light of the television I can see human limbs moving up and down below the foot of my parents' hotel bed. Thankfully my mom is still sleeping soundly. Dad has decided that the middle of the night is a good time to engage in some shoulder therapy. This would further explain why earlier in the evening he left the hotel room and returned with one of his golf putters. Mom shrieked in laughter as he walked through the door. Her outburst was enough to make me decide not to ask about the purpose of this putter. Its purpose just became apparent here in the middle of the night.
Dad looks like a male version of Jane Fonda, using his golf putter as support to rhythmically thrust his right arm at various angles as part of his rehab from rotator cuff surgery. I'd be the last person to ever accuse this man of being anything less than fully committed to everything he does, but his late night rituals make sharing a hotel room with him and Mom something to seriously reconsider in the future. I put a pillow over my head, hope to God he has already taken that damn pill he swallows so loudly, and return to slumber.
Yesterday morning (our 2nd day together) began with a text from my sister Julie which read, "Good morning! Have fun with Mom and Dad today. No fighting!!!" She must have intuited the breakfast conversation where we discussed who was going to finally inherit my Grandma Arthur's engagement ring which still resides in Mom and Dad's safety deposit box. This discussion segues into my acknowledging my strong desire to finally and officially settle down and get married to a woman (something that has pushed against my private logic for years, and was certain to wreak havoc with every Catholic indoctrinated cell within my parents). Knowing that I'm not currently seeing anyone, they are a bit confused, but listen attentively as I make my proclamation. No fighting ensued, but I think their parental brains are cogitating some great argument to present to me at a later time. As long as Dad and I don't have to return to our debate about the Catholic magisterium, I'm up for moving on to what is bound to be just as heated a discussion about the potential marriage of his lesbian daughter. Or maybe, once I've finally found her, they will sit proudly by as I betroth myself to my beloved mate. I'm going to put faith in the latter, and hope that since I'm the only child in the family who is yet to be married (and trusting there's still clout in being the oldest kid) I will ultimately inherit Grandma's gorgeous engagement ring.
As we return to our room after breakfast, I am witness to Mom and Dad's pronunciation war about the correct articulation of the word spelled e-g-g. Yes, 'egg.' There are apparently various ways to say this very small, one-syllable, three-letter word. My mother makes a strong case for her pronunciation. Dad doesn't have a leg to stand on. No one does when arguing with Joyce about grammar or anything associated with the English language. After their debate, they fall into each other on the bed and laugh uncontrollably. I mutter "Oh, brother" and prepare to argue my own case that a Green Bay Packers Lambeau Field tour falls into the same category of "No thank you," as a walk-through of a cheese factory.
Obviously, my argument fell on deaf ears.
Dad’s so happy to be at Lambeau field he reverse hugs the Greenbay Packers ‘G’. None of us look like we’ve had any sleep.
Just before the incredibly unflattering photo above is snapped, I realize that the trunk of the rental car is not locking; the trunk that was to hold all of our valuable belongings as we stroll through an ungodly long tour of a stadium neither I nor my mother could give five shits about.
I call Dad back to the car to assist me in figuring out what’s wrong, and after much speculation he shouts across the parking lot to my mother, "Joycie, the trunk won't lock!"
I drop my head in disbelief that he has just announced to the entire packed parking lot that our car is unsecured. hear Mom begin laughing in the distance as she reads my body language. "Gene! Sshhuushhh!" she exclaims. I drop my head further and begin strategizing the best ways to position my bags to be able to endure an hour-long tour while carrying them. I've decided I'd rather be touring a cheese factory.
We have to wait over an hour for our tour to begin, because apparently this tour is extremely popular and there are tons of people who have been waiting in line since the crack of dawn to walk the grounds of a stadium where prospective season ticket holders actually stay on a waiting list for so long that they end up passing down their position on the waiting list to their heirs. This seems utterly sad to me on so many levels.
Waiting gives us way too much down time, which makes me a little nervous that Dad might want us to say the rosary together. Thankfully, the 5-year-old in him is in full force and he's too distracted to sit still for 5 decades of Hail Marys.
Being known in certain circles as the girl with the freshest breath, I'm keenly aware that such a reference would definitely not hold up in this moment. We ran out of the hotel room so fast to make it to this damn tour, I didn't have time to brush my teeth. I mention out loud wishing I had some gum or a mint. Neither of my parents has either. Dad disappears. I figure he's heading to the men's room. Mom and I later see him asking questions of random strangers. This is nothing new for my father, so we think little of it until he finally saunters up to a table of cheeseheads and proceeds to take something from a woman after she scrounges through her purse. Dad returns with three slices of spearmint gum and that chimpanzee grin plastered on his face. He's always been my hero (regardless of how often I want to choke him) even in these small and seemingly insignificant moments. or some reason, in this moment, I'm touched to associate myself with one of the more appealing ways in which I take after him.
For some other reason, this moment causes me to recall the many times in my life– like this one– when he and I have exchanged the short but sweet dialogue of, "Thanks, Daddy." "You're welcome, baby girl."
Before our tour begins, and thankfully after Dad has gifted me with a piece of hijacked gum, I find solidarity with a clan of folks who are also being forced to take the Packers stadium tour. I approach them and ask if I may get a picture of them and their adorable family reunion shirts, as I too am here in Lambeau Field against my will. They agree as long as I will be in the photo with them, while offering me one of their Forced Family Fun tees which originally clothed the cardboard head of the brother/son who couldn't join them. Midwest kindness has never been lost on me.
When I pose to Dad the question of when the hell he began caring about the Packers, he tells me about the time Vince Lombardi walked off the field at halftime just before the Packers' Super Bowl win over the Chiefs. Dad loved that when Lombardi was asked by reporters what inspired his unmistakable smile at the start of halftime, Lombardi responded that he had finally figured out the Chiefs' offense, and that he knew that was all he needed for his strong Packers team defense to win the Super Bowl.
"Good story, Dad, but seriously, that's what made you a Packers fan?!" I ask.
"I'm not a Packers fan," Dad whips back.
"Then why the hell are we here?" I respond.
"Because, when my Packers friends back in KC gloat about their team, I can ask them if they've ever been to Lambeau Field. When they say they haven't, I can say I have."
OMG. Seriously?! I should have asked more questions this morning. I'll never get these 3 hours of my life back.
As we drive north to our resort, Lambeau tour finally over and the stadium in our rearview mirror, a most surreal conversation transpires.
"Née Née, do you still wipe your bottom the way I taught you to wipe it when you were a little girl?"
Wide-eyed, I am jarred from my daydreaming into a conversation I'm certain I’d rather not enter. I take a quick mental inventory to check that no blood relative has yet been diagnosed with the Alzheimer's I'm certain my father is suffering in this moment. If I had been drinking something, it would surely have projectile spewed out my nose and all over the back of my mother's head. This may be the first time I actually voluntarily leap from a moving vehicle.
"Um, Dad, do I want to know why you are asking me this question?" I inquire, cautiously.
"Just 'cause I want to know, Née."
Wondering if he is somehow assessing his parenting skills or trying to determine his overall effect as a father, I feel strangely compelled to respond with a straight answer.
"Well, I may not remember how to change the oil in my car because I wasn't really paying attention that day– but wiping my butt is an entirely different story. A girl just doesn't forget a thing like that, Dad. Wipe until there is no more brown. That’s what you taught me."
"That's my girl," Dad proudly gloats.
"Okay, dear God, can we please change the subject?" I retort, as Mom snickers.
We pull over to gas up the car... and I excuse myself to the restroom where I am blessed with the opportunity to test my physical skills alongside my verbal passing of the wiping test.