This is much funnier now than when it happened, though at the time I felt like I needed a cigar to fit the Groucho image better.
The prelude to comedy was I went to Walmart Thursday night while Candi was with a gal friend kicking about. The friend's daughter got sick so she dumped C at home. She called with a where-the-hell-are-you tone.
Well, at Walmart, getting the stuff it was her idea I go after during her outing. It really was her idea. I wouldn't presume to go without her on my own initiative.
The timing was in main part because I had said I want to watch Sherlock on PBS actually over the air, instead of on the slow and halting wifi at the clubhouse.
She had to escalate to cover for getting upset for me carrying out her idea. Supposedly it hadn't been definite enough.
Okay, so I did it without super specific permission. So what?
Big argument. I said we needed to end this before the show started. I had returned within 20 min of her call and there was 40 min until what I had said was my only priority for the night.
She fumed, shook her fists with the ugly face she uses when she channels her mother. She showed me the door.
It put on my shoes, spurring into a cross between apology and justification and denial. I walked through her to get to the door, saying I've had enough.
No idea where I might go, but I didn't make it out cleanly. She scrambled into her shoes and coat and ran after me, begging me not to go even while explaining why she was totally justified.
Here's where the slapstick comes in. She ran to catch up to my fast walk and ran ahead to head me off. But I took a left to go between buildings. She pivoted and caught up on the new course, again going ahead. I spun around to charge off the other way.
My pace and posture reminded me of Groucho as president of a little country striding hither and yon while government ministers scrambled to keep up.
I quit changing course and just picked up the pace. She ran along in the cold, finally stopping and claiming she was on the verge of an asthma attack without her Inhaler. I told her I wasn't buying it and went on, telling her to go home.
She was apologizing and saying she didn't want to be like that, like her mother, like the anxious scared girl afraid of being left alone so much she has to squeeze and not let go.
I had heard this far to often to believe change could happen. I race-walked on.
But then someone said something that brought my granddaughters to mind. I recalled how good Candi is with them and how much they like her.
I pivoted one last time, put an arm around her, and said, "Let's go home."
I had no idea of where to go otherwise.
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