How to Tease Your Parents

Who doesn’t like to gently tease the parents?  Is the house too pristine?  Never fear, the kids will come over and turn all the lighthouse throw pillows upside down.  Got a cutesy felt sign that says “NOEL” at Christmas?  It will soon spell EL NO.  Or LEON.  Or LONE.  The Nativity scene might wind up with Mary in the manger or the baby Jesus riding a camel.  No one admits to these things.

My kids come from a long line of teasers, including me.  My mom had a life-sized goose outside the front door.  Women had these things in the 70’s.  It was the era of geese as I recall. Women were nutty over country ruffles, forest green and peach colors, and artificial flowers.  Mom thought it was so dah-ling to have a little straw hat perched jauntily on the goose’s head.  But it didn’t stay there for long.  My brother and I had different plans.  I’d like to say I started it, but I really am not sure.  But one day the straw hat was on the head of the Hermes bust in the hallway.  My brother picked this game up quickly.  When the hat was found, the finder must remove the hat when no one was looking and place it on a new head, then wait. The funnier the place was perceived by the finder, the more secret points one got.  No one knew how many points one scored or what they could be used for, but there were definitely points. 

My dad never joined in.  He told us he was a grouchy old Navy officer.  Truth be told, he wasn’t that old, but he did have the lofty rank of Captain in the US Navy.  Captains aren’t usually meek, so the grouchy part was perceivably true, especially when he was paying bills.  His portrait hung above us in the living room, stiff necked in his gold braided uniform.  My mom, a noteworthy artist, had painted it.  She was a master at capturing the heart of her subjects and dad said she certainly had captured him, in more ways than one.

But as for the hat game, Mom never joined in either.  If she found the hat, it went straight back on the goose. “Now you kids stop that.”

The straw goose hat went from the head of Hermes, to an angel statue, to a teddy bear, to a stuffed dog, to the actual dog, and finally, the grand prize winner.  I’m not sure if it was my brother or me who thought of it, but we died laughing.  To this day, neither of us will admit to putting it there.  But one of us suspended it by black thread in front of my dad’s portrait, so that it blocked his uniform hat and made it look like he was wearing the straw goose hat.

In later years, I noticed that the portrait of my dad wasn’t so stiff necked.  In fact, he seems to be slouching.  He’s grinning, too.  You know what else?  Mom painted him with a twinkle in his eye.  That ol’ devil. 

I wonder if it was him?  He’s probably having the last laugh.  Way to go, Dad, way to go.