Chocolate & Vanilla

My father and I were sitting at the kitchen table, having just finished a five-star breakfast prepared lovingly by my wife, and we continued to sit there enjoying a nice cup of gourmet coffee courtesy of me.

Gourmet coffee is one of my few indulgences.

We were reading the morning newspaper, or, rather, my father was reading the newspaper. I usually help myself to the sections he doesn’t enjoy reading, which means I sit there paperless, because my father hoards the newspaper like Hints From Heloise was printed on gold. I buy the paper, and my father has first dibs.

Go figure.

It’s been that way ever since I was a kid. My father got the newspaper first, and no one else was allowed to even consider swiping a section of it until he was done. Not even the comic section, which he didn’t read.

“Dad,” my wife asked my father sweetly, with the patience of a Mother Theresa, “do you want any ice cream?”

My father looked up from the newspaper.

“Huh... well... hmm...” he said. “What’s that again?”

“Would you like some ice cream?”

“Some what?”

“Ice cream. Would you like some?”

“Well, yeah... I could eat some ice cream.”

That wasn’t exactly what my wife was asking, but it was close enough.

“What flavor would you like?”

“Huh... well... hmm... What flavor do I want?”

“Yes, dad. What flavor do you want?”

“What flavor do I want... what flavor do I want? Well, I think... hmm... What flavor do you have?”

“We have chocolate and vanilla.”

“You have what?”

We only have the same two flavors we always have. My wife might buy a different flavor on occasion, Cherry Garcia or coffee with chocolate chunks are particular favorites, but chocolate and vanilla are our usual choices.

“Huh... well... hmm...” my father grumbled, considering the possibilities. “You said chocolate and vanilla?”

“Yes, chocolate and vanilla.”

“Well, I really don’t know. Hmm, you said chocolate and vanilla?”

“I did.”

I think on some level my wife was being amused by all this. I just stayed quiet, enjoying the show like it was a vaudeville skit.

My father said, thought about it, and then he thought about it some more. And then he said, “Is that all you have?”

“Yes, dad. Just chocolate and vanilla.”

“No strawberry?”

“No strawberry.”

“Well,” he said, finally coming to a decision, “in that case, let me have vanilla, but not too much. You always serve me too much.”

My wife then turned to me. I was surprised she still had the energy to remember I’m there.

“Honey,” she said, “would you like some ice cream?”

I know she’s being polite asking my father first, but it still irks me a bit that I get asked second in my own home. Maybe the Native Americans catered to their elders, but looked what happened to the Native Americans.

“No, thank you, sweetie,” I told her. “I’m going out for a walk.”

Off some cliff.