"Rover"

My mom and I were talking this morning (she always comes over for a visit on Sunday mornings)about some of the stupid things my brother and I did when we were young (and he still continues to do, but that's a whole different chapter).

My dad is this big truck driver who is most likely the sweetest, most soft hearted person I've ever met. Don't get me wrong, he's an ass (he is a man after all) but he's also very sweet. With a really foul mouth, and a sense of humor that would offend as many as it appeals to, he's really a hell of a guy. My mom fell in love with him when she was fifteen and became best friends with his little sister, my Aunt D. One day, she was hanging out with Aunt D, when my dad pulled up to the house in his '67 Chevy camaro (he's got excellent taste in cars, too). He's nearly six and a half feet tall and back in the day, his hair was shoulder length and really blond. My mom was awestruck. They were sitting on the porch when he breezed by. He was eighteen and didn't pay attention to his little sisters or their friends. So my mom made the first move. She stuck her head in the door and asked if he could come out and play, to which he replied, "my momma won't let me". As the saying goes, the rest is history.

Throughout my childhood, they were either fighting or making up. My dad was a dog, but one thing about him, he really did love my mom. She was just as badly in love with him. I say badly, because I'm almost convinced that the level of affection and passion they had for one another wasn't exactly healthy. As a child, I thought that every ones parents were as volatile as mine. Not until they split up when I was eleven did it start to sink in that maybe they were crazy. For real. That was also the year I found out that they had divorced when I was five. They were back together by the time I turned twelve and remained that way until I was knocked up at fifteen. Then my dad went a little crazy (can you say mid life meltdown?) and decided to begin openly dating other people. My mom decided she was going to kill him until I finally got through to her that murdering him probably wasn't the best idea. I moved her out into an apartment that same day and three months later my mom married one of my dad's old friends. It was a damn mess. For real. Dad was dumbfounded. He really had thought mom would wait on him to sow his wild oats. Mom is still married to the same guy a dozen years later, but I know that both of them have their moments of missing the other. Not that they don't love the people they're with. They just have so much history together, I don't think they would or could ever completely get over the other.

So, a quick story from my childhood.

We were in a restaurant and my brother asked my dad what the waitress's name was. Apparently (I don't remember), the waitress wasn't what you would call a "looker", so my dad being the smart ass he is, said "Rover". Well, Charlie (my brother) didn't know what the meaning of "Rover" was at his young and tender age of maybe ten. He began yelling "Rover" while holding his glass up in the air for a refill. My dad was mortified. He yelled at Charlie and wouldn't let him eat, even though it was his own damn fault. My mom gave Charlie his plate back and I don't remember how the waitress behaved towards us after that, as I was probably seven years old, but I wonder if she ever thinks about the asshole kid that was calling her rover....

Moral of the story is........don't be an ass.