THE WILDS OF BAY CITY, MICHIGAN – Though I am often quick to tell others of my high-functioning, mildly attention-deficit family, there are times, I’m afraid, when we do not fit the portrait of an ideal nuclear* unit.
*pronounced NUKE-yah-ler
For example, when my mother has had a glass of wine and SOMEBODY wants to know who the fuck took his socks out of the Sock Bag and threw them in the washing machine. Then, Debbie Filek will include her husband in the list of people for whom she is legally obligated to care. The Sock Bag, by the by, is a mesh sack with a zipper closure in which Mr. Gibson stores all his soiled foot garments so that said garments may be washed without losing a single sock and thereby misplacing one half of a perfectly good pair.
The only reason my father ever has matching socks on his feet.
For those of us well-versed in dryer science, it is obvious that the drying machine, former hiding spot and chasm of mystery, is capable of swallowing up all manner of clothing in its dark abyss, regardless of the Sock Bag. But this is where my father employs an overdose of logic that can, in cases such as these, become his downfall, leading my mother to insist that she, Saint Debbie, is the sole provider to a family of four children rather than just her biological three. Often times, she tells everyone, it is the fourth child, the one to whom she did not give birth, that causes the most aggravation in her life.
It should also be noted that Mr. Gibson refers to my mother, who measures 5’ tall and has her hair shorn close to the scalp, as a “little boy.” Saint Debbie lives up to this moniker by drooling on herself, falling asleep at the dinner table, and occasionally removing articles of clothing at inappropriate times. In my experience, I have known small children to do all of the above.
But the point is that if, indeed, Mr. Gibson is her oldest, most developmentally-stunted child, then I will be putting in a call to Child Services, because Saint Debbie decided this past weekend to pack up and leave her oldest son at home. You might be thinking, “Dana, this is just a joke. Your mother doesn’t really think her husband is a mildly impaired youth who requires constant supervision. This is not real.”
And to that I say WELL SHE SHOULD. Because when I called my father on Saturday afternoon, he was waging war on our aging family cat, hiding in the corner of the room, giggling to himself, completely unsupervised.
"I smell varmint poon-tang."
If there is one connection in the F-G family unit that bears a fractured relationship, it is undoubtedly the connection between father and family pet. Oapey is a slightly senile older feline and, as we recently discovered, a semi-closeted homosexual. He has, for many years, lusted after my father, spending countless nights attempting to curl up on Mr. Gibson’s lap to the tune of Hockey Night in Canada (“FUCK OFF, CAT!”). At best, their exchanges are cordial: Oapey will stand sentinel by Mr. Gibson’s side, hoping to reach his lap so that my father might pet him. However, each time Oapey moves to join my father on his chair, Mr. Gibson places a hand over the cat’s face. For years, the sexually frustrated cat has struggled with this unrequited love.
Hell hath no fury like a senile cat scorned.
One of the reasons for this familial tension stems from the dining room at F-G Headquarters. This room, you see, is open to the backyard on two sides. On one side is a wall of paneled windows that looks out across the entire lawn. On the other side is a French window that offers a view of the neighbour’s hedges and serves as a door in the summer months. However, in an ongoing lover’s quarrel with my father, Oapey believes the purpose of this door is to permit him entry into the house during mealtimes, where he will sit by Mr. Gibson’s chair and meow incessantly, until my father either a) gives in and pets the cat, or b) sends him back outside to the tune of several creative obscenities. Many a night in my childhood did I sit down to dinner with the family, only to be interrupted as the cat appeared at the window, up on his hind legs, scratching on the glass. At my father’s instruction, no one was allowed to move or acknowledge Oapey (“JESUS CHRIST, LEAVE HIM OUT THERE!”), and so we listened to the faint, pathetic, half-hearted meows through the glass, eating in silence.
To this day, the battle has not ceased. But there was a slight victory for my father this Saturday while I was on the telephone. Mr. Gibson, seated at his usual spot in the dining room, could see Oapey staring him down from the paneled windows, several feet away from the glass. When the cat moved to approach the French window on the other side of the room, hoping to repeat his constant dirtying of the glass, my father stood up and left the room. The cat then approached the window, attempting to get inside, but realized that the person he had just seen moments before had disappeared. When Oapey returned to the paneled window on the other side, my father returned to his chair. The cat is already senile, but after three repetitions of this game, he was completely perplexed and my father, triumphant, couldn’t have been happier. I tried to scold him for taunting the elderly, which he already does to my mother, but it was no use.
ME: Please be nice to the cat.
MR. GIBSON: I am being nice. (Pause) Oh, shut up, cat.
Because I had called just as this cruel game was heating up, I was fortunate enough to receive the full play-by-play of our cat’s bewilderment from my father, a grown man hiding around the corner of the dining room, BY HIMSELF in the house, snickering at the expense of our family pet. This, Saint Debbie, is why you should have called a babysitter. This is why you cannot leave him at home alone. After we hung up, I have no doubt in my mind that he burned some ants or lit a bird on fire. We’re all aware that he needs to be supervised, and quite frankly, you and I both know better. If you’re going to go away, at least pop in an NHL DVD. Maybe buy those hockey dolls my high school journalism teacher used to talk so much about? And if that doesn’t work, threaten to call in Julie, the 300-lb., heavily mustached, trike-riding error in judgment you left with your other three children for weeks at a time.
I still resent this.
But, of course, this is what family is to the Filek-Gibsons: no one person is a parent or a child; no one is even really in charge. We’re all just making sure no one lights a bird on fire.
New Year’s Resolution #9: Make sure none of my family members goes unsupervised. Or kills the cat.
