Like the time she told me not to climb the tree in our front yard- ignoring her, I did and ended up in the hospital with a broken arm. Or when she told my father that I needed more driving lessons and I went on to total two cars. The only time she wasnt right was when it came to cooking. My mother made this dish called "Mystery Meatloaf", which consisted of whatever meat is used to make meatloaf and a hidden surprise tucked inside the dish. The winner of the dinner wouldn't end up with a prize-but with the thrill of eating a hard boiled egg and meatloaf. Vomit.
When I was about 10 my parents took my sister and I on a 2-month vacation across the country. My father loved to drive, so my sister and I were subject to 5-hour car rides in the family's Lincoln Town Car. Now, I dont remember much of this car, but it did have some fancy electronics involving the trunk automatically lowering itself- we of course, always over-packed so it because a battle of man vs. electronic locking mechanism. Remember in the early 90's, my sister and I were not sitting in the laps of luxury watching Beverly Hills 90210 on DVD or playing Playstation in the backseat of the car- we had eachother and the game "I know you are...But what am I." The game is very basic, it involves one person putting the other down, until my parents would interrupt and demand silent time. The highlight of these car trips would be the occasional prision break siren that you would hear while traveling in the remote roads of Nevada (temperature over 100, which meant my father would turn off the air in the car for risk of overheating the vehicle) and thinking that the Friedman family would be the center of a "60 Minutes" special about the "Murder in the Desert." This never happened.
After a visit to Mount Rushmore, while leaving the National Park (I have practically been to every park in the US) my sister decided to take off her seatbelt and throw the buckle in my face (to this day I am not sure if this was intentional). As one could imagine, this split my lip and caused a great deal of pain. Luckily for me we were low on gas, so we stopped at the finest gas station one could imagine exists in South Dakota- this would be where I would address my wound.
My mother insisted that my father take me to the restroom to make sure that I was ok and help me wash the blood that was streaming down my face. My father and I couldnt disagree more, I was fine (as I saw 3 of my father) and my dad needed to pump the gas so we would be god-know-where by night (how can you top 4 stone men). I dont remember much of what happened in the next 5-10 minutes, but here's how the trucker painted the story to my parents: apparently after washing my lip, I decided to use the urinal (Friedman rule: never turn up a bathroom stop) and passed out, hitting my head on the base of the fixture. Imagine my Jewish mothers' face, seeing her son being carried out of a gas station bathroom by a trucker. To this day I wonder if my fly was still down (maybe this is where a different type of "60 Minutes" story should play out?)
What I do know for certain, is that my mother made it very clear to my father that once again she was right, he should have taken me into the bathroom. In all of my 27-years my mother has never been wrong...well, unless it comes to sticking eggs where eggs dont belong.
Clean it up kids,
Dan
No comments:
Post a Comment