David Heiller
A friend of our family called Monday morning with the urgent news that her son had a serious viral infection and needed to be rushed to Duluth for medical care. She asked if we could look after her four children after school while she and her husband stayed in Duluth at the hospital.
Of course, I answered, of course. Three children, and one teenager, we can handle that.
My wife called later in the day and told me to pick up a jar of spaghetti sauce. “The biggest one you can find,” she added.
“Do you need hamburger?” I asked, trying to hide my excitement. Hamburger in our house is a rare treat, and so is store-bought spaghetti sauce. I say that knowing my wife will understand that it brings back fond memories of my college days, Hamburger Helper and all that.
Cindy assured me that she already had plenty of hamburger on hand from our friend’s freezer. After I bought the half-gallon jar of spaghetti sauce, I thought about renting a movie for the kids. But I shook off that notion. “We don’t need the television as a crutch. We can handle this,” I thought.
When I got home, all four of the guests, plus our own two kids, were sitting in front of the television. “What are they watching?” I asked Cindy.
“Oh, I rented Pinocchio for them to watch on the VCR,” she replied. She’s no dummy.
The spaghetti sauce smelled wonderful, filled with chunks of hamburger. Cindy threw a huge handful of noodles into boiling water. We use whole wheat noodles, which are not your normal, white noodles. They resemble the color of a frog. They taste fine though.
But the kids didn’t think so. The oldest guest, April, ate hers, showing great courage and leadership for a 14-year-old. But Josh Sarah, and Lizzie nibbled around the edges, and put their plates down. Our kids, closely watching their visiting heroes, put their plates down too.
Normally, kids not eating their supper gets my goat. But this time it got my stomach. As I eyed those full plates, my stomach reasoned with my brain. I forgave the kids and ate the leftovers.
Three platefuls later my stomach started having second thoughts. Bubbles began rising into my mouth, popping and fizzing. I felt like Thanksgiving with an after-taste.
“Ooohh,” I said loudly in Cindy’s direction. “What kind of spices did you put in that stuff?”
“None,” Cindy answered in a triumphant tone.
When Pinocchio ended, April and Josh washed the dishes, while I cleaned tables and supervised. Dish washing is a great time to talk to your wife, or your kids, or your friends’ kids. But for Josh, who is teetering on the abyss of adolescence, it’s a great time to listen to music. He happened to bring some cassette tapes with him, 16 in fact.
“What would you like to hear, Dave?” he asked me.
“What have you got?” I asked with some reluctance. Nothing tells your age like talking about music with a 12-year-old boy.
“Let’s see, there’s Z.Z. Tops, you might like Velcro Fly or Sleeping Bag.”
“Too heavy,” April warned. Hearing a 14-year-old tell a 12-year-old that music is too heavy is like hearing a five-star general tell a four-star general that there’s too much uranium in that last nuclear bomb that rolled off the assembly line. I took it seriously.
‘Well, how. about Mike and the Mechanics?” Josh continued.
Where does he work, at the Deep Rock in Askov? I felt like asking. But I held myself back. Serious kids don’t understand a good joke.
“There’s Bon Jovi,” Josh continued. “He’s Christian. He’s totally cool.”
“Too heavy,” April warned again. Christian music, too heavy? Whatever happened to bongo drums and a folk guitar?
“All right, Scorpions!” Josh yelled.
Sarah, his 10-year-old sister, chimed in cheerfully from behind us, “It’s heavy.”
After a long list of other possibilities, we settled on Tears for Fears. Even I, Mr. WCCO-KDAL, had heard of them.
After dishes, they piled into the car and Cindy drove them home. I thought, “Gee, that wasn’t so bad after all.”
My stomach started to argue, but I wouldn’t hear a word. That was my own fault.
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