Did i tell you?
I’m starting to repeat myself. I’m telling and retelling things to anyone who has ears and looks my way. I wouldn’t even notice, except for the look they give me. It is the universal sign of agonizing boredom.
You know the look. We all gave it to our moms and dads and older relatives.
Holiday time. Doddering, gray-haired old ladies whose lives had some fraying thread of connection to ours filed through the front door like inmates in a chain gang.
Each one carried a boulder of foiled food, fresh from her dingy oven, and wobbled toward the kitchen under its creamed/breaded weight.
Their mouths were pursed and smiling; they were carrying a story or two that would circulate through every ear canal in the house with more repeat action that the cauliflower casserole they’d brought.
Behind the womenfolk, a troop of jangling, bent-backed “I’m here because she’s here” men stumbled across the threshold. Their job was to sit. Perchance to eat. Then drive the wife home.
In the kitchen, a buzz of busy lips blabbed back and forth. The voices were muffled by the crinkling of foil, but we knew what they were saying.
The words were the same ones they brought with them every visit. The stories were legends of long-winded “guess who I ran into-s” and “remember the time-s” that hadn’t changed since man first grunted.
Mom was being so gracious in there. She listened. She “Uh-Huh”-ed. She chuckled at appropriate intervals. And she never once gave a hint of having heard it all before. She was a saint.
By this time, the living room was filled to flatulent capacity with balding men.
Baggy behinds took up residence on every cushioned surface. Achy knees popped as legs extended toward the middle of the room like the bars of a cage. They all wore the same pants and sported the same thick glasses over rheumy eyeballs.
We were surrounded by matching sets of skinny, pink ankles…all peeking out from the tops of droopy socks.
Flaccid lungs filled with air all around us as the men began passing their rerun stories around the room. Old war stories. “I had my colon checked” dissertations.
“RememberFredfromhighschoolhewasinthehospitallastyear” updates.
We had been ordered to stay stapled to the couch and to listen. We wished for ears that would fold shut, like the little round coin purses those guys carried.
But we knew the time would come, at unexpected intervals, when we would be required to answer one simple question.
“DID I TELL YOU THIS ALREADY?” The old guy bellowed his question because he couldn’t hear. His bony elbow punctured our chest cavity.
We took a deep breath. And lied.
“NO, I DON’T THINK SO,” we shouted, shaking our heads in case the battery in his whistling hearing aid was low. But our face told it all.
It was THAT LOOK. The one that said, ‘Oh, please, GOD—don’t let me get this old’.
Well. I’m seeing that same sentiment on young faces everywhere these days. I’ve done a lot of living, and I have things to say. I toss my stories out, in great detail, to whomever will listen.
Kind people and lean forward as if interested. I babble as long as I like; they nod appropriately.
My family is not so kind. They listen for a minute or so, sneering and tapping their nails against the coffee table. Then, just as I get to the best part, they stop me.
“YOU TOLD ME THAT A MILLION TIMES. PLEASE, MOM. HAS ANYTHING NEW HAPPENED TO YOU IN THE LAST DECADE OR SO?”
That’s when I blink in sudden, horrifying realization. No. I have no news. Not that I can remember. Then:
"But did I tell you about Fred? Yourgrandpa’sfriendfromhighschool? He died."
Contact Robin at robinwrites@yahoo.com
This article originally appeared on The McDonough County Voice: Retelling the same stories at family gatherings
