20 years ago, I was 20 pounds lighter.
20 minutes ago, I thought of that sentence which I typed 20 seconds ago.
20 years ago, I had more upper and lower body strength and I also had more body mass and less fat cells. I had more muscle control which allowed friends and family to lift me in all sorts of ways that are no longer safe. Some of these ways included piggyback rides, you grab the ankles and I’ll grab the wrists, a sack of Patrick, and the over the shoulder fireman carry to name a few.
My favorite was the one I called ‘Carry Me Over the Threshold.’
You know, the wedding night one, Gone With the Wind up the stairs. I’m laying flat or sitting, and the other party wraps one arm around the middle of my back and one behind my knees and lifts me so that I am splayed across their arms. They walk, and I make stupid comments like, don’t ever leave me, you had me at hello, and I have always loved you and your beautiful eyes. I am amazed that I’ve never been physically dropped. If you are reading this and you have lifted me like this, I applaud and appreciate you. I’ve also always loved you….
That leads me to this writing’s title. We all have a friend named Bob. Some of us ARE the friend named Bob. The Bob I want to talk about is my brother-in-laws father. Get that? How does one know their brother-in-law’s father, who is the father-in-law of my sister and therefore not a blood relative nor anyone I should know intimately enough to carry me on his back or over the threshold? Well, this is no ordinary Bob you see. Plus, before his son married my sister, I dated his daughter. I swear even though we are all from the northeast, this isn’t weird. Just bear with me. I’ve known Bob for 30ish years as I also went to college with his son and he and I are both musicians. Bob and I became tight by time, space, and a love of 2 things: music and having a broken and dark sense of humor.
Side story before the main one so you can understand what kind of a Bob this Bob is. He bobs and weaves. Sorry, bad joke.
In his working years, Bob was a project manager for several companies who built machines to make machines run. Yeah, you read that right. He oversaw machines that made machine parts, belts, automated stuff, assembly line things and stuff like that.
One day, years before I met Bob, he was visiting the assembly line where Rolo candies are made. You may know that Rolo is chocolate covering sweet caramel inside. They are bite sized and delicious. Bob fell behind on the tour, likely distracted by flashing lights, or the smell of Rolo’s rolling out on the conveyer. Without a second thought, Bob snatched a Rolo with his bare hands as it rolled by on said belt. He knew he wasn’t supposed to, but he simply couldn’t help himself. He was unprepared for the fact that this batch had just come out of the baking oven and quickly learned that the caramel inside had the temperature and consistency of lava. It was only natural that someone in the group asked Bob a question about one of the machines two seconds after he ate the Rolo. He had to look calm, and try to answer with a mouth full of caramel that was touching 20 Kelvin. Poor Bob. That story is classic Bob. All of Bob’s stories are like that one. He laughs when he tells them and I have repeatedly written to the writer’s of Saturday Night Live, suggesting a recurring character and skits based on Bob. I have been banned from entering 30 Rock in NYC. It doesn’t matter. Imma keep writing. You need this character. The WORLD needs this character.
Wow Pat, that’s funny. Stay awesome, stay safe…..WAIT. Not so fast, loyal reader(s)! I haven’t told you the PAT/BOB story.
The year: 2005
The place: Chicago, near the Art Museum
The reason: My sister, now dating Bob’s son, was receiving her PhD from Northwestern University. Our families were in town for the ceremony. During a break in the action, we decided to take a cab to the Art Museum.
In those days, I used a manual folding wheelchair and there were little to no options for wheelchair taxis. I traveled via old school yellow cab, sat in the front (easier to be lifted in or out….the backdoor of any car doesn’t open too far), and my chair would be folded and put in the trunk.
I was wearing a button down shirt, khaki pants and dress shoes. This matters. Please remember these details. Bob and or his son hoisted me into the front of the cab, while they sat in the back along with my sister or my mother. I can’t remember who it was. That detail does not matter. You may empty your recycling bin of that nugget.
Here’s where it gets good, and I do hope that this doesn’t come out as a “I guess you had to be there” story or this entire blog will be for naught. Pity. You are going to read it either way because you can’t help yourself and you really have nothing better to do at this exact moment so let’s see how it unfolds huh?
Speaking of unfold, we arrived at the curb just outside the Chicago Art Museum on a busy street. No time to dawdle. The cabbie went to the trunk to get my chair out. Bob’ son went to help and Bob said: “I’ll get Pat. No problem, he’s light.”
Since I am sitting in the passenger front seat of the cab, Bob and I discuss the ‘Threshold’ lift. I wrap my right arm around his neck and he puts his left arm around my middle back. His right hand shimmies under both of my knees and he begins to slide me out of the cab. I’m careful to make certain that I have unbuckled my seat belt. (Don’t laugh, people have tried to extract me from all sorts of things while I’ve been belted in….).
As he lifts me off the seat and begins to pull me out of the car, my right foot (in a dress shoe) somehow gets hooked on a small protruding part of the dash board just to the left of the glovebox. (hey, glovebox is one word….who knew?)….
Without either of us saying a word, Bob yanks me a little harder and my foot breaks free….along with the entire plastic piece of the cab’s dashboard above the glovebox. The top of the dash has papers and other crap up there. It all comes spilling down on the front bench seat, along with about 4 feet of dislodged car plastic. I begin to laugh so hard that I feel I may piss myself. Bob is all “Oh sheesh…oh boy, oh no!” as he plops me into my manual chair. He quickly tries to right the ship that is the bow of the Titanic…..I mean cab, but it is too late. The cabbie has seen what we have done. He looks confused, flummoxed and generally grumpy at the same time.
Bob and I apologize profusely while Bob the machine parts making project manager attempts to straighten maps and papers while reattaching the plastic part. No dice. Negative. He cannot attach it again.
We overtip the cab guy. Better than tipping him over. We apologize once more and he drives off. Holding myself together is no longer possible when Bob smiles at me and says:
“I will never forget this day, nor this moment as we have legally vandalized the inside of that poor dude’s taxi. I feel so bad but it was so funny watching your foot get caught, then stuck, and then yanked free along with the top of the dashboard. Oh my God that was amazing. How cheap does that car have to be to be snapped together like that?”
We were all dying. The only thing funnier would have been seeing a tube of Rolo candies in the glovebox
Stay safe, stay awesome, and stay tuned. I love you Bob. Maybe next I’ll tell the story about the mime…..or the time you piggybacked me into a canoe….or, or, or….
Moeschen! 