He did what she wanted

"Don't pout, Allen," my mother said at the kitchen table. "And be a man, for once! If you'd listen to me and do things just the way I say, everything would be fine and everyone would be happy. But no, you have to do things your own way and that's when things go wrong, Allen!"

"But Betty, I just wanted to make sure your drink was right before giving it to you!" he countered.

"Who ever heard of a bartender taking a sip from a customer's drink? That's silly, Allen. Just do what I tell you and nothing else," she demanded.

Mike and I looked at each other. He had that look in his eyes, "Is this real or just really bad acting?" that he would get on our visits to Chautauqua. And I had that look in my eyes, "I can't believe they've been doing this for 52 years."

"Allen, I'm going into the living room to watch Fox News. You come with me."

Sotto voce, I whispered to Mike, "That's the R.W. News to you and me."

From the other room, my mother heard me. "I heard that! You think I don't know what R.W. News stands for, Jim? Well, I'm your mother and I will not be spoken to in this manner! You will have respect for me and my political choices if you expect me to have any kind of respect for those liberals you seem to love!"

There was no winning. "All right, Mike and I are going for a walk."

We headed out the door, but just as it was about to close, Dad walked around the corner.

"Dad," I asked, knowing his answer but asking anyway, "why don't you come with us? It's a beautiful evening and the lake is just sparkling."

He was pouting again. God, I hated it when my father pouted. Didn't he realize just how pathetic that was? And here I was with my boyfriend of just two years. God knows what he was thinking -- "Is this what I have to look forward to with Jim? Will he be an outrageous bitch or a wimpy pouter?" Run for the hills, Mike. I've got the worst of both my parents.

"No," Dad whimpered, all 74 years of him brimming with misery, "I can't. Your mother doesn't want to be alone in the house."

"Oh, for heaven's sake," I said, echoing one of my mother's impatient refrains, "it's not as if she can run after you. She's about 75 pounds overweight and she has two artificial hips. Just let her sit in that Archie Bunker chair of hers and rant all she wants."

"Maybe another time," Dad said and closed the door.

"That's unbelievable!" Mike said. "He needs to grow a pair."

"Honey, if I ever become like one of my parents, or worse both, just take me out back and shoot me."

"God, your father is such a wimp! Why doesn't he just stand up to that bitch? The way she was ranting, I just wanted to push her fat ass off the balcony and watch her fall to the ground in slow, slow motion."

"Oh, he's just as bad as she is -- they feed off each other. You know as well as I do that the only kick he gets out of life these days is surfing the web for gay leather daddies into S&M."

"If only he knew we knew, boy! Yeah, we have to get your dad a boyfriend with a whip."

"Basically, that's what he's got now. Except that that boyfriend with a whip is my 74-year old mother."