Special of the Day: Steaks and Stooges
When we last saw my dad, he was heading off to Porterville with his friend Irv to buy steaks, like some sort of red meat solstice.
“If it moos, cook it,” that’s my dad’s motto.
Dad says summer’s coming and he needs to stock up on T-bones and all this other weird steak stuff for the grill. Porterhouse. Ground beef. Chuck.
“Hey, Dad, who’s Chuck?” I ask him.
“Don’t be a wise guy,” he says.
“Dad, I’m a girl.”
“Don’t be a wise-guy girl,” he says, then turns the column over to me, the patient older daughter, as he heads off to this butcher shop.
“Hey, Mom, at least he’s not shooting anything,” I tell my mom.
“Not that we know about,” my mom says.
You should’ve heard them talking. First, Mom says, “Why are you going all the way to Porterville?” And Dad says, “Do we really need a new septic tank?” And Mom says “Soccer sign-ups are Thursday.” And Dad says, “SOCCER SIGN-UPS!” like that, because soccer season just ended and already he’s writing checks.
“I’m hemorrhaging money,” he says.
“Oh, by the way, my car needs new tires,” Mom says.
“Somebody help me!” he yells.
“Why, Daddy?” my little sister asks.
“Because I’m hemorrhaging money!” he says.
“Oh,” says my little sister, and everybody goes back to what they were doing before.
As you know, there’s not much yelling allowed in the suburbs. Usually what happens is people just internalize their frustrations, then seethe awhile, then go on with their yard work or drive around in their SUVs until everything’s normal again. I swear, I am so looking forward to college.
Sometimes Dad will just be sitting there watching “The Three Stooges” on TV and going, “Curly Howard was a genius. A real genius,” and Mom will be standing there, watching him watch “The Three Stooges.”
“Come watch awhile,” he’ll say, and Mom will go over and sit next to him.
“I think,” my dad will say, “that watching ‘The Three Stooges’ makes you a better parent.”
“Why’s that?” my brother asks.
“We have three kids,” Dad says. “You do the math.”
“Oh, my God!” I scream.
And my dad and brother start going “n’yuck, n’yuck, n’yuck,” like that, and making Stooges sounds.
And my Mom will say, “Is this all you’re going to do today--lie here on the couch?”
Which is when Dad explains to her that he’s at that age where he can’t think unless he’s lying down.
“Einstein was that way,” he says. “Especially on weekends.”
“He was?” my little sister asks.
“You bet,” my dad says.
“Hey, Einstein, want a sandwich?” my mom says.
“Sure,” says my dad, as if he’d ever turn down a sandwich.
Isn’t that romantic? I love when Mom calls him Einstein.
Last weekend they argued for 30 minutes about gas prices. I swear, gas prices. And my cell phone bill. After that, they spent an hour discussing which kind of lettuce to have with dinner. Iceberg or romaine? Iceberg or romaine? Like that.
My dad says he’s like the Billy Crystal of our particular suburb and my mom’s his Meg Ryan, and one day they are destined to meet and fall in love all over again, soon as he quits hemorrhaging money. Soon as he gets back from Porterville.
“Why Porterville?” is what you’re probably asking. I don’t really know. I guess his friend Irv knows a great butcher shop up there or something.
Plus, Dad says sometimes guys just need to go off somewhere by themselves for a while, which, he says, is what led to the entire Apollo space program, not to mention Lewis and Clark and a bunch of other dead guys.
“Without wanderlust, there would be no America,” he says. “There would be no Super Bowl.”
Dad says if guys didn’t need to get away for a while, we’d all still be living in Europe and no one would have satellite TV or democracy or Lee Marvin movies or all the things that make life worthwhile.
“Without wanderlust, there would be nothing new,” he says.
So off he goes to Porterville, humming the theme from “MASH,” which is the other thing he watches besides the Stooges. Mom says “MASH” used to be a big hit, like a million years ago when dad was young.
“Hey, Dad, what are you getting in Porterville?” my little sister asks.
“For you, a nice porterhouse,” my dad says. “Big as a hubcap.”
“Really?” my sister says, all excited and stuff.
“Maybe a mastodon steak,” he says.
“Big as a hubcap?” she asks.
“Bigger,” he says.
Oh, my God. Now you see what my life is like?
I don’t know exactly where Porterville is, but it must be pretty far from L.A. on account of the way Dad got the car all ready and checked the oil.
When Mom asked him where it was, he says Porterville is about a million oil rigs east of Bakersfield.
“Then you take a right,” he says, whatever that means. That’s the way he talks around Irv. Guy talk and lots of jokes nobody gets.
And that’s when we last saw my dad, heading off in the minivan, off to discover America and buy steaks, which leaves me writing his stupid column for him.
When he gets back, he says he’ll grill up some steaks and make these humongous baked potatoes for everybody.
“Big as footballs,” he says when he describes the potatoes.
“Bigger,” says Irv.
“Bigger than footballs,” my dad says.
Then he and Irv will probably sit down on the couch and watch “The Three Stooges.”
I keep telling Mom that I’m pretty sure I’m never getting married. But she says I should try it eventually. By then, maybe men will be different.
“You can’t judge all men by your father,” she says.
“You’re sure?” I say.
“Some are worse,” she says.
Oh, my God.
Chris Erskine’s column is published on Wednesdays. His e-mail address is chris.erskine@latimes.com.
