You would think a Father’s Day meal with my parents and sister wouldn’t revolve into an argument between my Mom and Dad about, of all things, me. It started off simply enough with Mom asking us for our first memories of Dad. Dad, then, perhaps to encourage me (or shame me into silence), started telling his first memory of me. “So there are the nurses, smacking you, and we didn’t realize this wasn’t usual… ‘We’re not going to lose him!’, they told us.”

“We weren’t about to lose him!”

“It was a little serious.”

“No it wasn’t! (To Me:) You just had some holes in your lungs, dear.”

“And that’s not serious? You were in the ICU. There were these two twins there, Mia and Tia? And they were so tiny, their dad was sitting in a rocking chair cradling them. You were a big baby.”

“You were jaundiced. You were in too long.”

“What your Mom means is you were overcooked…”

Thanks, Mom.

Summer, for me, as a pizza delivery guy, officially begins when I deliver pizzas to a house where no adults are present and a bunch of possibly high-school or first-year college students are sitting around blasting music, slapping each other’s asses, and drinking cheap beer. And, although this time no cute girl informed me she was “trashed“, I was offered cheap beer. I declined for a few reasons, mostly because it was cheap beer (and not of the National Bohemian variety).

My last run of the night was to an apartment complex near where I live. Because we were closed when I returned to the store, Robin let me take the run on my way home. What this entails is paying for the ticket when you check out, then just not returning to the store after the customer pays and tips. We’re not supposed to be doing this anymore. Why? (more…)