Trena Eiden

I was in the laundry room pulling new underwear out of the package when Gar walked in. I swung a pair in the air and said, “Yay, new undies.” His eyebrows shot up, and with a hopeful look asked, “Are they thongs?” I scowled as if trying to remember then said, “I can’t be sure, but I don’t think so, wait, no, I’m sorry, no, no they aren’t. It’ll come as a big disappointment, not to mention a real shock, but I don’t think I could wear a thong, even if Jesus personally delivered it in a Hershey truck.”  

Growing up, our offspring used to witness this type of insanity and banter between Gar and me, and that’s why when they had friends over, they’d say their mom and dad were out of town and we were the babysitters. As teenagers, they’d rather risk their friends think they had babysitters, than psychos for parents. And they all know now that they were error-free on the psycho part and will happily tell me to my face. One day, I mentioned this to Tanner Chriss, our second son, by stating, “You kids wondered about your parents.” Putting his arm around my shoulder and leaning close, he whispered, “There was no parents, as in plural to wonder about, we knew which one was questionable.”  

 As we age, our main goal is to make genuine attempts at achieving wise decisions. Wouldn’t that be so great if accomplished? Ha! Steve Jobs felt that it was OK to make mistakes because if you are, at least you’re making decisions. Steve Jobs never witnessed Gar and me in real time.  

Recently on a road trip, Gar and I stopped at a Wendy’s, paid for a burger and taco salad, then stepped out of the way. Noticing the young man filling our order and putting in onto a tray, I went forward, apologized, and not realizing it would be a huge deal, told him it was “to go.” He was busy so he took a deep breath and turned to look at me through slitted eyes and downturned mouth. He turned his back to get, what I thought was a bag to load our food from the tray, but instead got a new taco salad. I said, “Oh no, wait, it’s OK, I’ll use the other one, the first one you had.” He ignored me, putting the unopened sour cream container on the side, along with tubs of salsa. Then he got a dish of chili and placed a lid on it instead of what I assume, is simply poured on the salad if eaten at a table. When he finally finished, I told him, “I’m really, truly sorry for all that extra work. I thought you’d just take it off the tray and put it in a bag, and I’d have certainly taken the salad you prepared in the first place.” He shrugged, unsmiling, but it was obvious he was very unhappy with us. Trying to help his bad humor, I told him my favorite quote about working with the public, “Mother Angelica was famous for saying, ‘If it wasn’t for people, we could all be holy.’” Not speaking, he attempted a thin smile to appease me, and kept moving. Gar and I took our bags to a table to make sure we had everything, but didn’t so I went back to the same guy for the missing fries. Then I started putting my salad together, opening and tasting the salsa. Did I want it on my salad? No, too sweet. I squeezed on the sour cream, mixed it in, poured the small container of chili over the lettuce and stirred it all together. Gar, watching me, said, “As long as it’s taking you, we might as well just eat here.” Then glancing at the counter and tipping his head toward the young man, said, “Man, that’d make him freak.” In 44 years of marriage, I’d never heard him use that word, so burst into an uproarious fit of giggles. We left. 

I do something right once in a while. I’d come to Texas just before a grandbaby was born. After waiting nine months, her 3-year-old brother was mesmerized into thinking I was the proverbial stork, when two days after I arrived, she arrived. Her mom said to him “We sure made a beautiful baby, didn’t we?” He shook his head, “Mommy, we didn’t make our baby, Grammy made her.” Ya, in your face Tanner Chriss.