Monday, November 19, 2007
I wish I were a jewel thief. The man who taught my dad and his siblings how to swim turned out to be a famous jewel thief, nicknamed "Murf the Surf". My father swims and surfs quite well, but I would rather Jack Murphy had versed my father in the more lucrative art of robbery, because that might have translated to a substantially greater amount and quality of Christmas presents for me thirty years later.
The past few Christmases I spent with la familia, The Father informed me and my four siblings that Santa had allotted us each ungefähr one hundred fifty dollars, which, after tax, corresponds to the cost of a fascinating toy I saw in the WAL*MART supplement to this past Saturday's Lubbock Avalanche Journal, which I flipped through in the back of house at work between taking and making sandwich orders for people who were too lazy to remain at home to lunch with their families, but instead got dressed and drove to Schlotzky's Deli on 19th Street in Lubbock, Texas for the purpose of waiting around for a sandwich prepared by moi.
I beckoned Maria, a Hispanic lady old enough to be my mother, whose English consists almost exclusively of restaurant lingo, to stand for a moment beside me at the meat slicer for a view of what I had decided I wanted for Feliz Navidad. I tapped the price listed beside the photograph of the robot panda, at which Maria exhaled, "Pssh". Though I cannot speak Spanish, my receptive understanding of it has steadily improved over the years I have worked several mindless foodservice jobs: "Pssh" en espanol signifies many things, but in this instance translates roughly to: "What sort of over-indulgent parents would spend one hundred fifty dollars on one useless and very possibly evil toy for their pampered little brat?"
The sort of parents I wish I had, that's who!
[Lauree Frances Keith concluded this diatribe at 9:41 PM]