The Pickle Boat Has Taken a Detour
My mother recently had surgery, and I have been spending a lot of time at my parents' house fulfilling my daughterly duty to entertain my bored and drugged-up mama. A couple of days ago, after my mother had worked my last nerve, I concluded that I needed a little time to myself. Since the day was nice, I decided I would go sit on her back porch. However, my mother inconveniently didn't have any sunblock because she's a vampire and will turn to dust if exposed to natural sunlight. I therefore had to wait for my dad to finish whatever chore he was doing - crafting lawn furniture out of duct tape, or whatever he does to occupy himself - to get my hands on his sunscreen stash.
After March 1st, my Dad takes off his shirt and doesn't put it back on again until November 1st, unless he's going to work. This, at one point, led my best friend in high school to go up to him and say, "When's your birthday?" To which my dad replied, "February 4th." The best friend then declared, "You know what I'm going to get you this year? I'm going to buy you a shirt. Actually, not just one shirt, but several shirts." Luckily my dad found this amusing.
So my dad emerges from the basement, shirtless, sporting cut-off jean shorts and boat shoes, and carrying fist-fulls of sunblock product. Given that he looks as bright red as a lobster, it's unclear as to whether or not he has ever used said sunblock. But before he hands the bottles over to me, he kind of makes this kicking gesture like, "Look at my legs, aren't they sexy?" and I am, understandably, confused. Then, once again, he does a little Lord of the Dance move and sort of nods at me and lifts his eyebrows. I can't imagine what the hell he's trying to tell me. Several things go through my mind, like - he's had calf implants - he's started shaving his legs, but has done a really bad job at it - he's been wearing my mother's high heals, etc.
It gets even stranger when he motions for me to follow him to the basement, silently, so as to not arouse the suspicion of my mother in the next room. Now I'm worried. I'm thinking, "Maybe the years of turning lobster red each summer have given him skin cancer and he doesn't want my mother to know and get worried. But why did he look excited?"
When we get down the cellar stairs, he pulls out a bottle of self-tanning lotion and says, "This stuff is great! It's made my legs look tan, right? Instead of red? I just put on some plastic gloves and smeared it on my legs, and they turned tan right away! I got it at Wal-Mart!" He looked so proud of himself. My immediate response was, "Dad, just don't use so much of it that you turn orange like Paris Hilton," to which he replied, "Oh! No, it looks really natural. That doesn't happen! Just don't tell your mother."
Now, I'm not sure why my mother can't be privy to the fact that my dad uses self-tanning lotion - perhaps she wouldn't have the self-restraint not to make fun of him - I know I barely did. Also, why would this man, who literally wanders around looking like Willie-Off-the-Pickle-Boat, give a shit whether his legs look tan or burnt-lobster red? I blame US Weekly and Entertainment Tonight. They're ruining our culture.
To top things off, when I was exiting the highway on my way home, I looked over into the car next to me and saw this woman plucking her chin hairs in traffic. Who does that? What is happening to our society? Seriously people. This is becoming a problem.
posted by sun_sneezer @ 9:27 PM
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