Just Another Sunday

At about 2:00 am I had just finished watching As Good As It Gets and NEXT@ CNN when the phone rang. I was preparing to turn off the light and crawl into bed but My Dad was sick and already in bed so I decided to grab it. I checked the caller ID and saw that it was my brother's cellular phone, so I answered. He told me that he and some friends had been visiting several local clubs for dancing and music and was now within 20 miles of home; he told me he would be stopping here to spend the night. It seemed strange that he would be so close by; there are clubs where he lives; why travel to the other side of the state? I was too tired to question this so I said OK and then went to sleep. In the morning I ate some cereal, drank some orange juice and read the thick Sunday paper. I heard some noises in the garage so I went outside. My brother was replacing one of the tires on his car with a "doughnut" and the front bumper had fallen off. I asked him about this and he told me upon leaving one of the clubs last night he discovered this and suspected that someone had hit his car while backing out of a parking space, and then not wanting to be discovered left quickly. As for the tire he said it must have been from running over a nail or something. We talked for a while about topics ranging from a man he saw attempting to eat pizza dough from the Pizza Hut dumpster, a “dumpster diver” to some rap artist I was not familiar with and the Goth people he had seen at one of the three clubs he visited the previous night. Then he said good-bye and left so that he could get back to work on time.

Dad told me that he was sorry we didn't have the experience of growing up knowing parents who cared about each other. He told me that when he was younger he saw his parents argued at times but he also saw them embrace. I thought this was strange and irrelevant, why would he apologize? Just because the two didn’t like each other didn’t mean separately they didn’t love me. I guess this statement was more of an apology to himself than to me for putting himself in such a situation even then, it's not as if the strife between my parents had been entirely his fault. I hardly noticed as a kid, hardly cared unless their arguments got so loud they were disruptive to me. I wonder if he regrets marrying my mother, if so I understand, I certainly wouldn't want to marry someone like her. I sure don't regret it though, if it weren’t for them I wouldn't be here today, I'm sorry my Dad feels he wasted 20 years of his life with someone who didn't care about him but I value my existence. While outside with the car I saw my neighbor Mrs. Mason. She had lived next to us since as long as I can remember I used to help her rake her leaves in the fall and water her roses when they were on vacation in the summer. Her husband died recently and as terrible as this may sound, I’ve tried to keep my distance. It’s not that I don’t feel sorry for her but I’m worried if we talk long enough the subject will come up and then she’ll start gushing. I hate it when people do this, what the fuck am I supposed to say when you start complaining about situations I’ve never been in? I feel bad but I can’t help, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Leave me in peace. Later I went to best buy to purchase an extension cord for my PS2 controller. There is little more to say about today than what has already been posted, the end.

"Cheif that guy shouldn't be in the carpool lane, his passenger is just a big ball of candy" - The Simpsons