Monday, April 27, 2009

It my birfday!

In high school, I had two friends named Patrick. One went on to become a civil engineer and begat five daughters. In his spare time he curls using his minivan as the stone and once a year disappears to a cabin in the woods with his brothers where no voice higher than a baritone is permitted for a few days.

The other had somewhat of a vivid imagination and wide creative streak and would routinely enlist us to make life-sized papier mache mannequins which he would dress in hunter's gear and strap to the hood of his sister's jeep for a quick ride through town. He also had a whole repetoir of fictional characters he would tell wildly amusing stories about.

A set of these characters was loosely based on Carol Burnett's "Mama's Family" and Mama and Eunice were present except that Eunice was a little younger, meaner and had a brother who was a few fries short of a happy meal.

Patrick named him "Timmy" about 20 years before South Park was a glimmer in any censor's eye. Patrick, like Patrick and like me was essentially raised on seventies television. We all lived in a part of the country where in winter you had two choices in the evening: Watch TV or go out and freeze to death.

Patrick noticed that in sitcoms, cop dramas, action dramas and whatever gendre was being tossed our way between Dr. Pepper ads, every time a slightly lower functioning, special needs, challenged...

Aw hell, retard was introduced the kid invariably was named Timmy.

So Patrick created Timmy as a nephew, younger brother, cousin, whatever to Eunice and Eunice would regularly torment Timmy 'cause, let's face it, he was a quart low but Eunice and Momma weren't running with full crankcases either.

One night, in Patrick's story anyway, Eunice got up at around two a.m., went to Timmy's room, woke him up and announced:

"Timmy, its your birthday. Now you go down to the old recliner in the basement, the one in the corner by the furnace. Now you sit there and wait and we'll all be down shortly with your presents."

Timmy, all excited, dashed down to the chair, sat there expectantly until Momma came down with a load of laundry at about eleven the next morning.

"What you doing there Timmy?"

"It my birfday!"

"No it isn't! Land sakes, its June and your birthday is in September. What ever got that idea into you??"

Emotional torment. Patrick recognized that. He had a keen insight into the human condition which allowed him to be so successful in later life as a...

Drug dealer.

Now before you go casting moral dispersions, consider this. He was just out of college, needed to pay loans back, didn't have many other prospects and really just found a need to fill. It was, in a sense, market research with a bong.

The Timmy story's stuck around my brain and I told it to Thumper a couple of times. She found it funny so last week I woke her up at two in the morning, told her it was her birthday and she needed to go downstairs, sit on the spare couch in the basement by the furnace, the one the cat now lays claim to and wait for me to come down with her presents.

It was of course her birthday in fact. She kissed me, rolled over and went back to sleep. The next morning I got up, put on a robe and went to make her coffee. She started to giggle, laugh, um...

What is it that girls usually do? Oh yeah; titter.

Uncontrollably which I found amusing in that women in bed with me usually laugh at me undressing, not putting a robe on. But Thumper's different.

She was laughing at the Timmy joke I played on her in the middle of the night and kept laughing about it all day. Beyond the actual birthday present, beyond coffee and a newspaper in bed, beyond dinner out. In this she began to remind me of my cat. This would be the animal you can max out your charge card on in kitty gyms, catnip filled balls, feathers tied to fishing line and whatever else looks amusing but the cat invariably bats at it once or twice and then retreats to a corner to lick herself where you wish you could get to on your own body.

But give her a crumpled up page-day-calendar date and she's amused for a month!

I think Patrick went on to become a musician because the nine to five grind of corporate cannabis got to him. Feeling creatively crushed, he rebelled.

Like I said, the other Patrick is up for another bass weekend.

Thumper gardens and sometimes wonders, given the economy, if the local sheriff aerially surveys the town.

Me?

I just bunny on.

3 Comments:

Blogger Annie said...

Familiar territory. Thanks for the flashback and... for bunnying on.

8:28 PM  
Blogger cog said...

damn, these entries are multiplying like, like, bunnies.

I've known a Patrick or two in my day.

9:43 AM  
Blogger Ericka said...

clearly you've found your soul mate.

12:41 AM  

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