Donald and Claire Horner had invited Norm and Shirley Beech over for an evening of Pinochle. Actually, they didn’t play Pinochle anymore at all primarily because Norm had a chronic habit of holding back his best trump cards to insure winning the last trick. This had caused countless arguments over the years and once it was obvious to everyone that Norm was not about to change his strategy, the games eventually took a back seat to dessert and conversation.
“I heard a very disturbing comment by Vice President Biden recently,” Donald said as he took a sip of hazelnut flavored coffee.
“Were you listening to Rush?” Shirley asked,
“No—I’m sure it wasn’t Rush,” Donald answered, “I can’t remember—Claire, it wasn’t Rush, was it?”
“I don’t know. I’m not sure what you were going to say,”
“Wait a minute,” Donald suggested, “I was peeling potatoes—was that yesterday?”
“No, we had Chinese yesterday,” Claire reminded, “you made mashed potatoes Wednesday,”
“Right, and I was peeling the potatoes and we had the news on,”
“Did you see all that snow they got in Philadelphia?” Shirley injected.
“Wasn’t that awful?” Claire volunteered.
“And they say they’re expecting more tomorrow,”
“So much for Al Gore’s Global Warming!” Norm said and then laughed really loud.
“Did you hear the latest about Global Warming?” Donald challenged.
“’You mean the email scandal?” Shirley inquired.
“Email? No--what emails?”
“From England, there was a group of scientists—Norm, who were those British scientists?”
“Climate guys—but they weren’t all in England,” Norm shared, “somebody got a hold of some emails that were meant to be private,”
“No, they were scientific emails, not private stuff,”
“Yes, I know,” Norm snorted, “but they weren’t supposed to go public,”
“Where did you hear this?” Claire demanded.
“Oh, it was all over the place a few weeks ago,” Norm explained, “weren’t we at your sister’s when we heard about it?”
“We were at Brenda’s for Thanksgiving,” Shirley reminded, “I don’t know if we heard it there or what,”
“Thanksgiving?” Norm wondered, “that doesn’t seem right—where were we two weeks ago? Fred and Nancy were with us,”
“The Zimmerman’s? They had a barbeque last August,”
“That’s right—I remember that Fred had made up a shaker with salt and pepper in it. Ya know what he called it? Salty Pepper!”
“Salty Pepper!” Donald laughed out loud and then went into his Johnny Carson voice, “Is that wild? Is that crazy? That—that is nuts!” and he laughed very long and hard.
“And then he brought out a squeeze bottle filled with a mixture of mustard and ketchup,” Norm could hardly keep his face straight, “and he didn’t know whether to call it Mussup or Ketchard!”
Donald actually fell out of his seat laughing when he heard this.
“Fred’s a card, all right--when I asked him what he was going to be grilling, he said, a-ha-ha,” Norm was so overcome with laughter that he couldn’t talk anymore. After a few more big guffaws he managed to say, “Fred said we were having ‘Tube Steaks!’ and I didn’t realize until we sat down to eat, aha-ha-ha, that he meant hot dogs! Aha-ha-ha! Tube steak! Where does he come up with this stuff?”
By this time everyone was laughing. Donald wiped a few tears from his eyes and then produced his wallet and said, “Norm, would you like to see my pride and joy?” as he handed the wallet opened to a photo window.
Norm took the wallet and looked at the picture. He howled and fell back, “Aha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”
Shirley picked up the wallet and looked at the picture. It was a photograph of a squeeze bottle of Joy brand dish soap and a bottle of Pride furniture polish.
The evening soon came to a close and Norm and Shirley said good night and went home. Donald and Claire cleaned up and went to bed. Donald woke himself up once during the night—the term “tube steak” had entered his mind as he dreamed and he roared with laughter. It was like a knee-jerk reaction and he just couldn’t help it.
©2010 Tom Roy
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