February 22-23, 2015

Our story begins on a placid Sunday morning as a father attempts to get his crew moving toward church. It involves a snow bank, a thoughtless but not unkind son, and most miserably a sad man who enlists the son's mother to do a father's dirty work. Be forewarned: the story you are about to read includes some fucked-up shit.

Let's begin at the beginning, shall we, as the father heads out the back door to warm up the vehicles for church. As he approaches the first vehicle in the driveway, a Toyota Sienna minivan, he realizes that to get into that van will require him to shimmy sideways along a path of about one boot width, trying not to fall into a snowbank in the process. As he gamely attempts this non-inconsiderable feat, the father, who happens to have Parkinson's Disease, asks himself, "Who parks a car like this?" and almost immediately answers, "Not someone with balance issues!" In other words, a thoughtless but not unkind son.

BUT all's well that ends well, at least for now, as the father gets into the van, parks it in the street, so his son may drive it to church, then starts up the MINI in front position nearest the garage which the father will use to ferry the rest of the clan to church. The plan is apparently that the boy will leave Mass as soon as it ends, then drive home to be collected by friends with whom he will go see Birdman that afternoon. Off to worship God in uneventful fashion.

HOWEVER, when they arrive home, what should they see? A-HA! The van has been parked too far away from the garage, thus making it impossible to exit the MINI without doing a shimmy identical to the one the father experienced that morning. Not only that, but the boy's ride has not yet arrived, so when they come in the back door, who can blame the father for siccing the boy's mother on him? I know, anyone who has the slightest speck of maturity can blame him, but sic the mother he does, to the tune of "How many times do I have to tell you to pull that van up next to the garage and bla bla bla," with predictable results: suddenly we see the Son of Old Yeller appear in (almost) full roar, delivering a solid rant before finally finishing his cri de coeur with something about an "unreasonable scenario!"

Well, that's the old man's cue to beat a mumbled retreat upstairs to his room where he waits for the son to deliver his apology, which he does in less than five minutes, cracking the door to describe himself as an idiot. Old Yeller replies that he's sorry to make him take such things into consideration, at which point, the boy tells him in all sincerity that he has nothing to apologize for, calls himself an idiot (again), shuts the door and takes his leave ...

[insert description of weeping here]

... And weep he should, for the father's problem all along has obviously had its roots in misdirected frustration at the "balance issues" that led him to his initial anger with the son.

BUT, rather than explaining calmly and kindly to his son how parking the van in that way made him feel, Old Yeller saw his chance and took it! To have the boy's mother give him What For. The problem being that he wasn't counting on The Son of Old Yeller doing his thing, except that this in turn provided the old man with his chance to make the boy abase himself as he had wanted him to do in the first place. And that, my friends, is some fucked-up shit.

HOWEVER, because he could not wallow in the seemingly bottomless well of self pity and recriminations forever, you will be happy (or disgusted, as the case may be) to know that in almost no time at all, it was up and at 'em and out the door for the first #OneWalkADayWhetherINeedItOrNot through his neighborhood in what has to be at least three long weeks. And it is entirely likely that fact says all that needs to be said (and more) about what actually caused this entire regrettable incident.