Page 95 of Flirtasaurus
I guess not obvious enough.
Mom turns her attention back to Ralph. “Ralph, I’m sorry, uh… I don’t, uh… I don’t, uh… I don’t, uh… I don’t, uh… I don’t, uh—”
“Mom, your record is skipping,” Mark says.
“I don’t, uh… What do you mean by an emphasis on the ‘ish?’”
“Just that I’m Jewish bydescent. My dad’s side. But I lived with my mom, so it wasn’t a real present thing for me. Certainly never a devout, religious thing. I hit a Passover dinner once every few years or so. Lit some Hanukkah candles a handful of times, but that was about it. Wasn’t even bar mitzvahed.”
“Oh. Well, okay then.” Mom seems to simultaneously relax and tense.
“Is this… a problem?” Ralph asks slowly.
I pipe in. “Of course, it’s not a problem!”
“No, it’s not a problem,” Mom says.
“See, it’s not a problem! Mmm. These cookies kick major ass. You make these, Mom?”
“You’ll just convert as soon as possible and then commit to raise the children Catholic.”
And… I think my soul just left my body.
At a moment like this, you can do one of two things: Take a second to breathe and gather yourself to find the appropriate thing to say and do, or… freak the fuck out.
This is me we’re talking about, though, so, yeah, I freak the fuck out.
“The children?! Who the hell are the children!!?!”
“The children you’ll one day bear, if God grants me the answer to my daily prayers.”
“Bear? The children I will bear? What am I, a sheep?! Mom, what are you even doing right now? Ralph and I are not remotely on the path of getting married and procreating!”
“Well, not yet, but someday soon, you might be, so I just think you should be prepared and have the important discussions now, so you don’t find yourself in a position where—”
“He’s not even my boyfriend! We’re not even dating! He’s just a guy who works where I work who I ‘boned’ for the first time last night on the floor of the museum while tripping on shrooms!”
“Oh, snap!” both my brothers say in unison.
Mom gets deadly serious.
“You had relations with this boy out of wedlock?”
“Several times in one night, yes! And he was fucking stellar!”
“Attaboy!” My dad punches Ralph in the arm.
“Thank you?” Ralph’s head whips left and right like he doesn’t know what the hell to do with my cracked-out family.
“No need to feel awkward, son. I’m not one of those fathers who jokes about bringing a shotgun to the door when a young man wants to date my daughter. If a fine, upstanding gentleman like yourself can bring pleasure to my princess? Then I am all for it, and I want to hear all the details.”
“Gosh, Ken, I feel like there has to be some kind of parental middle ground you’re missing between assassinating me or asking for an erotic play-by-play of my encounter with your daughter.”
My father still has his arm around Ralph and is looking deeply into his eyes. “I’m a man of extremes, what can I say?”
“That’s it. I’m out of here.”
“Lopey, it’s your birthday! Stay here and talk to your mother.”
