Parental Guidance
By Wade Rouse
Diary
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FIFTEEN MINUTES INTO OUR FLIGHT to Ireland, as I watched my father stand in the aisle of an Aer Lingus plane, yank a four-day-old roast beef sandwich out of his suitcase and begin wolfing it down, I decided that taking my parents on their “dream trip” to Ireland was the worst idea I’d ever had — worse even than the time I gave myself an Ogilvie home perm in order to
look like a Bee Gee
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(and ended up looking more like Rerun from What’s
Happening!! than Robin Gibb). “Hits the spot!” my father yelled.
“Mother!” I called out. “He smuggled a hoagie onto the plane! I thought you threw it away!” My mother was seated in front of me, wearing a cat-themed sweatshirt, telling her seatmate a never-ending story about the time when — in the course of her career as a nurse — she twisted a patient’s penis into the shape of a pretzel. “I did throw it away, but he’s like a junkyard dog,” she hollered. “Don’t worry! The old goat has a gut of iron!”
My partner, Gary, and I spent the next two weeks driving my parents around the Ring of Kerry in the rain while my father consumed lethal quantities of Guinness, my mother hiked the Conor Pass in Payless flats, and my parents told anyone with red hair and an accent that we were from Ireland. (We are not.)
“Never again!” I said to Gary upon our return, as we pored over picture after picture of my parents sporting rain parkas that bellowed, “Kiss My Blarney Stone!” with arrows pointing to a variety of their body parts.
“Never again” lasted roughly six months — that’s when we decided to go on a guilt trip. Considering my parents had taken their dream trip, Gary felt incredibly guilty that his parents had not taken theirs. For a destination, I suggested Applebee’s — which I still firmly believe would have surpassed their wildest dreams — but that only earned me a night of silence from Gary. So, instead, we took them to an all-inclusive resort in Mexico.
“Si!” Gary’s father yelled an hour into the trip, after our waitress asked him a question about his iced tea. “You have to shout in their language, so they understand you,” he explained to me. We were still in the U.S. — at an airport Chili’s.
Later, we were greeted at the gorgeous resort in Mexico by an endless array of eye-popping buffets, native fruits and the culinary creations of four-star chefs. Yet what did Gary’s parents consume for the next seven days? Cans of Coke and sealed packages of Lay’s from a vending machine. Plus, despite beautiful, 85° days of cloudless blue skies, a gorgeous expanse of beach and turquoise waters beckoning us every day, Gary’s parents preferred to spend their time indoors, apparently fearing the sun more than I fear Ann Coulter.
After much cajoling, they finally emerged (on a particularly stunning afternoon) looking like beekeepers: His father sported trunks that reached his tube socks, a long-sleeved jacket, a UFO-sized hat and enough zinc oxide to prevent him from burning in a microwave. Gary’s mother was wearing a swimsuit she’d obviously borrowed from 1935.
We positioned an army of umbrellas over them until our section of the beach looked like it had been shaded by an eclipse. They seemed content, and (about four daiquiris later) I was feeling just relaxed enough to doze off when I heard Gary’s father yell at the top of his lungs, “Put your boobs away!”
Gary and I jolted upright to see a large group of women, talking to one another in French, looking very confused. “Just look at that! What do they think they’re doing?” Gary’s father said.
“In their culture, it’s fine,” Gary reasoned with him. “They’re comfortable with their bodies.”
“That’s fine if they do that in their own country. But when they’re in ours, they need to abide by our rules! It’s disgusting!”
“But, Dad,” Gary said, “We’re in Mexico!”
That’s when I switched to tequila.
Last year, Gary and I were going through pictures from these trips — my parents at the Cliffs of Moher, Gary’s parents at Tulum — and I began to bawl. In recent years, my mom had been diagnosed with cancer and Gary’s father with Parkinson’s. “It goes so fast,” I sighed.
“You ready for another trip?” Gary asked.
I nodded.
“Where?”
“Anywhere,” I said. “As long as we’re all together.”
Wade Rouse is the author of several books, including At Least in the City Someone Would Hear Me Scream. You can read more of his columns online @ metrosource.com.
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