Cobra Going Commando

Hey! This is very therapeutic writing all this stuff so I’m going to go two consecutive days with submissions. Let’s see what tomorrow brings and quite possibly break another record. Yesss.

So in the entry ‘Cuban B’, I mentioned that I have a good going to school story. I’m not a liar. Here it is.

My parents felt in the first and second grade that I was not mature / safe enough to make the 5 block trek to school each morning. And that’s why they forced a neighbor with also an only child to be my walking companion every day. We were like hobbits. Except no one went crazy and we wore shoes. But we were probably the same size. Right. Jeremy would usually get to our house and watch television in the living room while my mom curled my bangs into a puff ball and I ate mickey’s mini donuts for bfast. My mom wasn’t in to cooking. Especially egg rolls.

My house was weird, too. My family was not ‘typical’ growing up. A few things worth mentioning:

I showered with my dad until I was like 5. Weird.

My dad and I wrote light-hearted, fun songs about killing our family. Weird.

Both my parents and I gave each other three-way kisses while crescendoing the word ‘mucho’. I love you muuuuuuuUUUUCHO! Kind of fucking weird.

So anyway, anyone coming in to our odd home (I’m wearing my maniac mansion shirt today. Fuck you, world – I’m awesome!) would be typically put off by our antics, but somehow, by miracle most likely, Jeremy was not fazed. Probably because he was so fixated on watching morning cartoons. Almost always his arrival synched up with G.I. Joe. We’d all ignore him pretty much and do our routine and then when it was time to go, I’d let him know and we’d shove off. I don’t even think Jeremy and I were really friends. He told me once that his mom was having a baby girl and that they were going to give her the middle name ‘Rainbow’. I thought that was cool, but also mondo weird that he would have chosen such an effeminate name and not something amazing like ‘Nitro’ or ‘Lazer’ or something on American Gladiators (did that even exist in 1988?) when given the opportunity to weigh in on his soon-to-be punching bag sister. ‘Diamond’. Coolness.

One particular morning it was pretty awkward. My family also had a tendency to be half / fully naked at times and it was like whatever between us. Did I mention I showered with my dad up to the point that I was at eye level with his crotch?

We lived in a bungalow and my parents bedroom was the whole upstairs. There was a door on the entrance and it spilled out in to the dining room, hallway that connected my bedroom and bathroom and the living room, where Jeremy was WAITING. I was just coming out of the hallway and announcing to Jeremy that I was ready to go and, surprisingly, got his attention on the first try. Snake Eyes must have been away at a commercial. At the exact same time, the door to my parents’ stairs burst open and my dad is standing there with the biggest smile on his face and exclaims ‘Hey, I’m ready to go to work!’.

This is what my dad was wearing:

No shirt.

A tie.

White BVDs.

Black dress socks and shoes .

Carrying his briefcase. (he’s a professional…of course)

Oh my god. It was so embarrassing. If no one had been there, but my mom, I would have rolled on the ground dying of laughter. But instead I wanted to be put in the ground and roll over and die. My dad quickly realized that Jeremy was standing there and addressed him and quietly snuck back upstairs to look like a decent fucking human being. And I waited for Jeremy to freak out or give me the ‘wtf look’, but nothing. Was he in zombie mode? I don’t really remember how much longer after that, but Jeremy stopped picking me up in the morning. I’m sure he probably got a tv at home or moved to a distant planet or told his mom that my dad was a complete pervert. My dad’s awesome.