Car(e)less

Posted on October 11, 2013 under Storytelling with one comment

I am an avid walker.  I used to be an avid runner but the ravages of time and the constant pounding on the joints, have put me on the sidelines.  I walk back and forth to work every day, a roundtrip of five kilometers and some days will do the route twice.  Quite honestly, if we had public transportation my wife and I might just forego a vehicle altogether.  But sometimes you just have to have a car, especially when company is coming and you are scurrying around with last minute details.

I recently celebrated the 40^th anniversary of my graduation from university and attended some of the Homecoming 2013 activities.  It was great to see old friends and, thankfully, we all wore name tags as some of us (!) have changed our looks over four decades. There are a few extra pounds here and there and the guys’ hair, when still visible, waffles between grey and white.

We had agreed once again to host a gathering at our house after the class dinner, an opportunity to chat and sing a few old tunes.  Most of us no longer go to the Welcome Home pub on Saturday night for a variety of reasons but the ear-splitting volume of the music is chief among them.  We used to thrive on this but these days it’s just too loud … and they aren’t writing songs like they did in the 70s anyway.

Upon our arrival at the dinner, we parked our car at the cathedral which is the nearest parking lot to where the dinner was being held.  We mixed, we mingled, we dined and we drank.  Some drank more than they mixed and mingled and the resulting din caused a few to turn their hearing aids down.  After all of the speeches and dessert, it was time for the class photo.

Herding cats would have been easier as the photographer, a good natured soul, tried to get the assemblage to take their positions.  Sensing that this may take more than a few minutes, my wife announced her departure so that she could go home and have everything set to go, as company would be arriving shortly.

After what seemed like an eternity, the photo session ended. I decided against asking for a ride as it was a beautiful evening, so I headed out on foot for home.  I sidestepped, like landmines, bands of roving intoxicated students and walked briskly, in an attempt to get home before the first guests appeared.

Our car was not in the driveway when I reached the house. I figured that my wife was out getting the three bags of ice we needed to fill up the beer cooler.  I opened the back door, and stepped into the kitchen to find my wife putting snacks on the kitchen table.

I will spare you the discussion that ensued.  Use your imagination.  She had taken a cab home so that I could make a speedy departure in our car, ahead of our visitors.

There is a famous line from the iconic film, “Cool Hand Luke”.  The warden turns to the prisoner (Paul Newman) and says, “What we got here is a failure to communicate.”

Before we could sort out the mix up, the first wave of classmates was on the doorstep.  It was rather embarrassing handing one of them a $20 bill and asking him to go pick up ice.

The following morning, I walked back to retrieve my car from the church parking lot.  There was a Mass going on.  Our car was completely boxed in by church goers.  I sat in silence waiting for Mass to end and thought about those days in school when miscreants had to go to the blackboard and write lamentations a hundred times.

I could see myself standing there, writing in bold letters, over and over, “I must listen more carefully to my wife.”

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