Check

Last week, The Mother and The Father went to their family doctor for a dual check-up. Predictably, both have high cholesterol and high blood-pressure, but all their major parts are working fine. Ten points to the doctor for running thousands of dollars in lab tests to confirm what any idiot could tell you upon sight.

I think The Mother must have been expecting tougher news because she brought up a conversation with me in which she asked for my help if The Father dies first. "I can live without your father," she said. "Thirty-five years is a long time already."

"Ok," I said. "I can see that." I didn't really, but fuck, what do you say during these little Hallmark card moments The Mother so easily brings up?

"What I need though," she said and paused to look around the room. She seemed to be checking around be sure The Father wasn't in ear shot. "What I need is for you to show me how to do online banking."

"Oh Mom," I said and I think she thought I'd turned sad because she took one step toward me, in the kind of half-committed stroke of intimacy that people learn to adopt around my squeamishness toward touching. "You need to learn so much more than online banking. There's shopping on Amazon and how to pay the Nordstrom's card."

"So you'll show me when your father's dead?"