Primo has his weekly call with Sly
and Doris. I told you about that, right? Did I?
Every Sunday, before 3 p.m. his
time, he calls them. Even if he is at my house or I am at his place, he calls. He
can’t call any later because they start drinking at 4:00 and once they start
drinking, they do not remember phone conversations, which would not be an issue
except then they get angry at him for not calling.
They do not call him. He must call
them. Because you know – those are the rules. If he doesn’t call, he gets these
passive-aggressive emails about how they sure hope everything is OK and that he
is not dead in a ditch because that would be the only possible reason for him
not to call.
OK. I am making that part up –
they don’t literally write that he might be dead in a ditch, but that is the
subtext.
The sub-subtext is, “You are a
horrible son for not calling us.”
Primo: They brought up the pickled
herring again.
Me: Didn’t they talk about this
when we were there? That they were mad at Ted'sWife for eating all of the pickled
herring?
Primo: Yes. And then they
complained that Ted'sWife left dinner early and returned to the home of the
friend where she and Ted were staying and never went back to their house.
Me: When did this happen?
Primo: A few years ago, I think.
Me: What? They are still mad about
something that happened years ago?
Primo: They are very good at
remembering people not doing things right.
Me: Like elephants.
Primo: They are mad at you, too.
Me: Again? I mean, I know they are
mad that I was ignoring them by reading the paper when they were reading the
paper.
Primo: Nope. This is new mad at
you.
Me: OK? What now? Besides the
ignoring them and them telling you not to marry me, which 1. Is a little
premature—
Primo: It is not! I thought we had
already agreed to get married once the divorce is final!
Me: I don’t know why you didn’t
deal with getting divorced five years ago. You know – when you and ex-wife split.
Primo: Because I wasn’t in a hurry
to re-marry and ex-wife didn’t have a job, so I wanted to keep her on my health
insurance.
Me: OK. What I meant about being
premature is not that we’re not getting married but that your parents don’t
even officially know that we will get married. It is considered poor form, I
believe, to announce an engagement while one is still married.
Primo: My parents really don’t
care about poor form.
Me: Really? I hadn’t noticed.
Primo: What’s the second point?
Me: Oh! Yes. First point that it
is premature of them to be telling you not to marry me and second point is that
apparently, they do not learn from history, because history would teach them
that telling you not to marry someone does not work.
Primo: Nope.
Me: So other than they don’t want
you to marry me, what else are they angry about?
Primo: You ate all of something
that you were not supposed to eat.
Me: All of what?
Primo: I don’t know.
Me: Didn’t they tell you?
Primo: I get tired of their complaining
and I try not to encourage it by asking for details.
Me: You need to find out! Besides –
there was almost nothing for us to eat there. They didn’t even have lunch food.
Primo: I can’t remember, but you
were not supposed to eat it. And if you didn’t know you weren’t supposed to eat
it, you should have known.
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