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Humor January 2014

The Grumpy Old Man

Grumpy Grooms: The Next Generation

By Donald Rizzo

Next morning, the nine-member tribe piles in the two remaining cars and heads back to South Dakota to pick up the broken car. Parts still aren’t there. They only have enough money left for one room at a motel. Nine kids in one motel room — suicide is the only rational response.

A word of warning for you parents of happy, well-adjusted, obedient teenagers. Trust — BUT VERIFY. We had a young fellow fitting the above description some years ago. (Okay, okay — so it was many years ago — you’ll get old too, ya know.)

One day he told us he had been invited to a camp-out in Brevard, North Carolina, with a church group. A church group? He had never been known to have a keen interest in religion; maybe this was a good sign.

“What group is it?” his mother asked.

“Oh it’s a Methodist youth group. My friend, Kevin is a member and they’re recruiting people.”

“Okay,” she says. “But the minute you get there, call me and give me a phone number where you can be reached (pre-dates cell phones!).

Now it never occurred to us that our son, John, would tell us anything but the truth. He got excellent grades. He was a docent at the zoo. He was in the chess club for Gawd sake. How straightlaced is that?

So, on the appointed day, a caravan of three cars arrives and John shoehorns into one car amidst a gaggle of assorted arms, legs and torsos piled randomly inside. They disappear in a haze of exhaust.

Diane frets through the afternoon, wishing she had fleshed out a little more detail.

Finally the phone rings and it’s John.

“Hi Mom, we’re all settled in. We’re going to sing hymns around the campfire tonight.”

“Hmmm,” I think to myself, harking back to my teen years. “Sounds a little too goody two shoes to be true.”

“Phone number?” Diane says.

520...blah blah, he gives her a phone number.

“But it’s a phone booth, only one around and we’re quite far from it.”

They hang up.

“Lemme see that number.”

Hmmm.

I dial. I get a recording in Spanish from Mexico City.  No hymns in sight.

We corral his brother. “Did John tell you where he was going?”

His brother hems and haws and gets red.

“The truth!” we say menacingly.

“He said they were going to North Dakota!”

Diane bursts into tears.

The next day John calls.

“We know you’re headed for North Dakota. The question is why?”

“Steven is out there. His mother has a cottage on the Canadian border.” Steven is a schoolmate.

The caravan is more than half way there at this point, although one car overheated and was left at a garage in South Dakota while parts were being flown in.

“When you get home, yer grounded for six months!!!”

The next day we get a call from the South Dakota State Patrol. A gas station attendant called them after the kids stopped for gas, thinking the cars might be stolen. We verified that the gang was not comprised of runaways. (Although, John was.) I lobbied to have them all put in the slammer, but Momma wasn’t having any of that. When they arrived at Steven’s cottage his mother had apoplexy.

“One night and out of here!” she bellowed.

Next morning, the nine-member tribe piles in the two remaining cars and heads back to South Dakota to pick up the broken car. Parts still aren’t there. They only have enough money left for one room at a motel. Nine kids in one motel room — suicide is the only rational response.

There’s no air conditioning and nasty, biting flies are hatching and pouring through the open windows.

The girls monopolize the one bathroom. The boys head for the adjacent woods.

Finally the parts arrive and the girl who owns the car gets money wired from her terrified and furious father. Three days later they’re on the road again.

John finally arrives home, exhausted, fly-bitten and totally shook up about facing us. We took one look at him and said, “we think you made a lousy choice and that choice became its own punishment.”

 

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