If you are new to Broken Windows, thanks for reading. You may want to start here http://paulblais.blogspot.com/2011/11/introduction.html. I hope you have a good time with the book.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It all
started by my dad becoming a preacher. I mean, he is such a big hero to
everyone. You can’t even go to the stinking store with him for a gallon of
milk. How long does it take to get a stupid gallon of milk? Three minutes? You
go in, you pick your milk… whole or one percent. We all ways got one percent as
if drinking a cup of whole milk would clog your arteries or some other stupid
heart attack thing or something. Then you give the store your three bucks or
whatever, and bang, you’re done. Stink! Three stupid minutes for anyone else,
like an electrician or a rocket scientist.
But not my dad. Some
lady would see “the pastor” and say, all full of nasally high tones and stuff,
“Pastor Wayne. How lovely to see you.” And then all I’m thinking is how it
isn’t lovely to see her. But I have to put on this fake smile and look like a
good kid or some other stupid thing. And then she would go into some long story
of some major crisis or something, spilling her guts all over the place about
her husband and her having problems with their kid who was being rebellious and
ditching school or how she is always constipated or some other stupid thing
like that… right there in the dairy
section. In the stinking dairy section for crying in a bucket!
And it didn’t matter
if it was after hours or not. I mean, he was supposed to be off work at five,
right? Wrong. He didn’t have a time clock like some other joker who does his
eight and punches some stupid time clock and is off work so he can mow the lawn
or go to McDonalds, or pick up a gallon of milk for stink’s sake.
Five o clock is just
another time of day. “Ministry happens when ministry is needed.” That’s what my
dad always said. He was always saying some stupid thing like that. And it
always seemed to happen when we were in the dairy section or something. To be
honest, I hate ministry in the dairy section.
She couldn’t call the
church at three or whenever. It’s much more convenient for her to do it all in
the dairy section. I can just hear her telling her hen-pecked, beer-bellied
husband, “I’m going to the store to pick up some hamburger, chips, and perhaps
a little counseling.” I mean, it’s all right for her and all, but what about
us? What about me, for crying out load! What if we had another plan like not
talking to her or something like that for a change? We just had to stop
and talk. Well at least Dad would.
Stink, I would walk
away as soon she started talking about her hot flashes or something. I mean she
would start to say some stupid thing about her stupid life, and then she would
give me this stupid look like this is too much for a me to be hearing in the
stupid dairy section, and then Dad would say something stupid like, “Can you
give us just a minute, Son?” and then I’d have to go find something stupid to
do in the stupid store, and what was there to do in a stupid grocery store,
anyway? Go look at the tea section? Earl Grey or Lady Grey or English
Breakfast. I can’t stand Earl Grey. Especially when all you could ever put in
it at our house was one percent milk anyway.
Most of the time I
would find the magazine rack or someplace. Then every couple of magazines I
would step back to the end of the magazine isle and look at the dairy section
to see if the counseling session was over or not. Typically I could get through
about four or five magazines before he would come and find me. By then my plans
were all over. The movie started already, or my friends had left. I mean,
that’s what it was always like. I mean it made you afraid to go get milk or
something with Dad.
~~~~~~~~~~
If you like this book, please add a link to your Facebook.
No comments:
Post a Comment