Memorial Day always make me think of a friend of mine – for the sake of this post, let’s just call him Paul. His birthday always falls within a few days of the holiday. And there was always some celebration of that day in one way or another.
Back in my college days, road tripping for no apparent reason was just the thing to do. Besides, it was way fun. Since The University of Iowa was conveniently located on Interstate-80, road tripping was beyond easy. Now I live in Traverse City, MI. Nothing from here is either convenient OR easy.
Back to Paul’s birthday.
My roommates and I decided to travel to Omaha for some silly, yet extremely important excuse for a road trip over the long weekend. As we were approaching Des Moines, IA on our return to Iowa City, the idea of crashing Paul’s house for his birthday celebration just had to be done. No, Paul was not having a ‘birthday party’ by any means. It was his birthday and his mother was making cake. We were in college. There was cake. You can see why this was a needed stop.
Before I continue, I need to explain Paul. He’s a lawyer. An outwardly calm, reserved person that is amazingly unselfish in all aspects f his life. He does, however, take communicating seriously, asking direct questions and actively listening. Remember he is a lawyer. Taken out of context, an innocent bystander might view any interaction with Paul in full attention to the conversation that has gone off course as … hostile. But soon the laughter begins and it’s a fuckin’ free-for-all .
When the cake was finally served, I, of course, had a piece shoved in my mouth with another on fresh plate. Paul approached with a gracious host smile and asked the infamous question.
“What kind of cake is it?”
“It’s good. You should have some,” was my immediate response. I actually think I even raised the plate in his direction.
Immediately the gracious host smile galvanized. He leaned forward with intent.
“I didn’t ask you how the cake was,” he insisted, rapping the fore side of his right hand fingers into his open left palm. “I asked you ‘what kind of cake it was’!”
“Lemon,” I responded. “It’s good. You should have some.”
There was a moment of silence.
Then, Paul took the plate with the cake and starting eating. The fuckin’ free-for-all of laughter ensued.
