Absence makes the home grow odder
I GET HOME FROM A business trip smelling like the people who sat next to me on the plane. There I was in the middle seat, stuck between the Republican lady coming home from some caucus and a woman from Arkansas off to see her new grandchild. Caught in a storm cell of their $12 perfumes, I passed out only once. Lucky to be alive, actually.
“I’m home!” I announce when I burst through the door, slumped like a Sherpa.
Now, there are a lot of things that can happen when you announce, in a big way, that you are home from a short business trip. The people you live with can yawn and admit, at least half of them, that they never really noticed you were gone for almost five days.
Or, they can come rushing at you, hoping you’re still in some sort of tipping mode from your trip -- cab drivers, bar maids -- and that you’ll slip them five bucks just to make them go away smiling.
Or, like a cop arriving at a beer bust, you can be mobbed in hopes you’ll settle some long, drawn-out dispute, some petty argument that’s been simmering the entire time you were gone, for which there are too many explanations and not enough witnesses.
In any case, it’s always good to be home.
“Dad was gone?” one asks when I drop my suitcase.
“Yeah, he went somewhere,” another explains.
“He did?”
“He smells funny,” someone says, and they all turn back to their cellphones.
Increasingly, their lives are dominated by their cellphones, which they cradle in their hands like love notes. When they are not talking to them, they are staring dreamily at their screens, in hopes of some text message or who knows what. Perhaps an apparition. Perhaps a memo from God.
Whatever the attraction, it seems clear that cellphones are replacing parents as the dominant figures in our children’s lives. “Good luck, cellphones,” is all I can say. “Hope you have better luck.”
Behind the sink, there’s a note. It was put there while I was gone. It tells more about our little house than the flag out front, the cars in the driveway, the photos on the walls.
“PUT YOUR DISHES/GLASSES IN THE DISHWASHER!!!” the note says. “NOW!”
It is the “NOW!’ part that intrigues me. Because I have seen the exchanges, the way kids try to manipulate their mother.
Here’s the scene.
INT. SUBURBAN KITCHEN -- MORNING
Gangly teenage boy enters kitchen talking on his cellphone and carrying a bowl. He puts the dirty dish in the sink and turns to go.
BOY’S MOTHER
Um, can you please put that in the dishwasher?
BOY
But I’m on the phone.
BOY’S MOTHER
Put it in the dishwasher.
BOY
Soon as I’m done with this call, Mom. Promise.
Well, the boy’s cell call lasts four days. It’s one of his shorter calls. Many last a week.
When the phone call finally ends, the boy puts the bowl into the dishwasher. “See, I told you I’d put it in the dishwasher,” he tells his mother.
So his mother, upset at having to wait four days for a dish to be put in the dishwasher, takes matters into her own hands. She picks up a Magic Marker -- the big one that smells like gasoline -- and makes a sign.
“PUT YOUR DISHES/GLASSES IN THE DISHWASHER!!! NOW!”
Count the exclamation marks. Four. Are there too many? More likely, are there enough?
In theory, we could post signs everywhere in our house. PICK UP YOUR TOWELS!!! in the bathroom. NO FEET ON THE FURNITURE!!! in the den. NO JUGGLING THE GLASSWARE!!!!!!!! at the dining room table.
“We need a jail,” I tell my wife.
“A what?”
A jail. A drunk tank. A brig. We have reached the point at our little home where pleading and threatening are no longer enough. We need an entire criminal justice system of our own.
“When they don’t listen, we’ll just lock ‘em up,” I say.
“That’s brilliant!” my wife says.
“No, you’re brilliant,” I say, a compliment I don’t toss around lightly, usually just with brilliant people -- such as my wife, who is raising four kids alone. I’m there, of course, but it’s never quite clear why. I’m handy with carving knives and Christmas trees. Other than that, I’m largely decorative. It’s really only a matter of time before she starts dating again.
In the meantime, I am off to the Home Depot with plans to build a jail. I’m hoping they’ll have something prefab that I can just plop into an existing bathroom. If not, I’ll cobble something together by hand out of their old baby cribs and 6 quarts of Krazy Glue.
Did I mention it’s good to be home?
Chris Erskine can be reached at chris.erskine@latimes.com.
