I'm Sorry, Mom

“Dad, I’m cooking shrimp for dinner,” my wife asks my father, “do you want regular shrimp or coconut?”

Meanwhile, the guy who’s actually helping make dinner, his opinion goes unrequested.

Who’s that poor sap I’m talking about?

It’s me.

But I really can’t get too upset by it. My wife is just trying to make my father feel at home. It wasn’t that long ago that my mother passed away, and, after a brief time of him living on his own, we decided to ask him to move in with us. It’s not a decision I regret. Given the opportunity to do it all over again, I would, but it’s been tough. You can’t have two alpha males in the same wolf pack without one wolf becoming incredibly annoyed at the other.

In the old days, wise Native American elders used to walk off into the desert never to return after reaching a certain age.

Yeah, I can see the wisdom in that.

Although, what probably happened was when a Native American became old, he just wandered off and forgot how to get back.

Anyway...

“What?” my father says.

“I’m cooking shrimp for dinner. Would you like regular or coconut?”

“You’re cooking dinner? What are you cooking?”

“I’m cooking shrimp. Would you like regular or coconut”

“Did you say shrimp?”

“Yes, dad. Shrimp. Would you like regular or coconut?”

By this time I have my head down, so my wife can’t see me laughing. That’s what she gets for not asking me how I would like the shrimp prepared. I can feel her eyes boring down into the top of my head like angry twin lasers. She knows I’m laughing at her.

“You’re cooking shrimp?” my father continues. “I like shrimp. Yeah, hmm, that sounds good.”

Pause.

“Would you like regular or coconut?” my wife tries again.

“What?” my father says again.

“Would You Like Regular Or Coconut?”

“What are you yelling at me for?” my father says. A bit indignantly, I might add. “I can hear.”

And it’s true, my father can hear. Unfortunately, he only seems to hear the things he’s not supposed to hear. Never the things he’s supposed to.

“Pop!” I could yell at him. “There’s a fire! Grab your dog and get out!”

“What?” my father would say, not moving his eyes off the TV.

“A fire! Get out!”

“What are you yelling at me for? I can hear!” he’d yell back. And then, “Are you grilling chicken? Save me a leg.”

On the other hand, my father could be sitting down watching his two favorite baseball teams playing each other on TV and I could be in the kitchen with my wife. If I lean over and whisper in her ear, “Let’s go upstairs,” my father would yell out at us, “If you’re going upstairs, can you bring me back that soft blanket I like?”

Anyway...

So my wife apologizes for yelling, and my father says, “What kind of shrimp did you say?”

“Regular or coconut. Which one would you like?”

My father’s paying attention now, so he kind of hears the two choices.

“Hmm... regular. What’s the other kind?”

“Coconut.”

“Coconut? Hmm, yeah... I like coconut shrimp.”

“So you want coconut, then?”

“What’s the other kind?”

My wife pauses. She’s getting flustered now. Me? I’m still chuckling under my breath. Personally, I prefer coconut. I don’t know why my wife is giving any of us a choice. If she feels like eating regular shrimp, she should make regular shrimp. If she feels like eating coconut shrimp, then she should make coconut. I don’t care, and it’s that simple. You see, my wife has the good fortune of being married to someone who will eat whatever she cooks.

“Regular,” my wife says.

“What’s regular?”

My wife lets out a sigh. And then she explains how she prepares the shrimp, and the seasonings she uses. I don’t think my father understands a word of it. Heck, even my eyes started to glaze over.

“I like coconut,” my father finally says, without really answering the question. I think he was just taking the path of least resistance, decision making-wise.

So coconut shrimp it is. I win without even having to play the game, and, besides which, I got a good chuckle out of the whole thing as well.

I remember when I was a kid, my mother never cooked shrimp, so marrying my wife was almost an introduction to the joys of shellfish, those little cockroaches of the sea. The closest thing to shrimp my mother ever cooked was liver, and that’s not close at all. I also remember that to eat that liver I had to add ketchup to it to get it down.

A lot of ketchup.

In those days, what you were served is what you ate. If you didn’t eat, you went hungry. The way it should be. Go to those countries where people are starving, and you don’t have picky eaters. You don’t have eating disorders, food allergies, or morbid obesity. What you have is a country full of people who would be grateful for a chickpea. So, even though I might have preferred a hamburger (Come to think of it, why didn’t my mother just make hamburgers every night?), I ate pretty much whatever was put in front of me. I just added ketchup to whatever I didn’t like to help me get it down.

Liver? Ketchup. Beans? Ketchup. Heck, I even added ketchup to my scrambled eggs, and I like scrambled eggs.

Why am I telling you all this?

Because my wife takes her time preparing and cooking the shrimp, regular or otherwise. She cooks for us with love, and, as that great philosopher Diana Ross sang, “You can’t hurry love.”

My wife even makes some nice white rice to go with it. Some people have a hard time making rice just right. Not my wife. Her rice always comes out light and fluffy.

So my wife serves my father a nice plate of coconut shrimp on a bed of white rice. I count the pieces of shrimp. Hmm, he’s got seven. I’ve only got six. Not that I’m keeping score or anything.

My father looks at his plate.

Meanwhile, my wife serves herself, and sits down to eat with us.

My father’s still looking at his plate.

I don’t know what he’s looking at.

Me?

I get started on mine. I don’t believe in having a staring contest with my food.

“Do you have any ketchup?” my father finally asks. “I like ketchup on my shrimp.”

“But it’s coconut shrimp, dad,” my wife says softly.

“What?”

“It’s coconut shrimp...”

I step in.

“Pop, it’s coconut shrimp. You don’t put ketchup on coconut shrimp. It’s already seasoned. With coconut.”

“But I like ketchup on my shrimp.”

My wife doesn’t argue. She doesn’t even say a word. She gets up, goes to the refrigerator, and brings back a bottle of ketchup. She hands it to my father, who drowns his shrimp in ketchup, much like I used to do to the liver my mother would also cook with love. I find myself wishing she were still alive so I could tell her, “I’m sorry.”

Anyway...

My father spears a shrimp with his fork, so as to not get any ketchup on his fingers. He takes a bite.

“Mmm... ah... yeah,” he smacks. Smack, smack, smack! “Oh, yeah... this shrimp is good.”

He turns to me.

“Your wife’s a good cook,” he says.