Family - The Ties That Bind...And Gag! by Erma Bombeck Read Free Book Online Page B

meatballs.
    Arthur appeared with a key around his neck and a book that weighed 36 pounds and introduced himself as our wine steward. I introduced him to Bill, Dick, and Bernice.
    When the entrees were placed before us, no one dared touch his food until he had gone through the Black Pepper Experience. Now, I don't pretend to understand when pepper got to be right up there behind frankincense and myrrh, but it is. That's when Stud came over to the table with a pepper mill the size of a piano leg (the bigger the pepper mill... the larger the check) and said, “Pepper?”
    All the conversation came to a halt while we thought about what our answers would be when it came to us. I hesitated a moment and then said, “Yes, please.” Stud watched my hand, waiting for me to orchestrate how much and the precise moment to stop.
    The weird part of this is that not one grain of pepper comes out of the mill. (It's sorta like watching the first piece of luggage come off a carousel in airport baggage. Ever see anyone claim it? Of course you haven't. Because it doesn't belong to anyone, that's why.)
    As Brick cleared the table, Stud appeared with his dessert cart and Wendy pouted openly when no one wanted a liqueur. I wanted coffee, but if we stayed any longer, I'd have been too old to lift the cup.
    We said good-bye to Hal, Wendy, Brick, Stud, Frank, and Arthur. We were exhausted.
    I suppose someday the home-cooked meal may return. When? Maybe when they come out with Phyllis Diller's fantasy: a stove that flushes. Who knows?
    As one of the kids rummaged in the refrigerator, he said, “What's this?”
    “It's celery and it's good for you.”
    He said, “If it's so great, then how come it never danced on television?”
    I couldn't answer him.
     
    TECHNOLOGY'S COMING ...
    TECHNOLOGY'S COMING
    Friday: 8 p.m.
    The younger son made his move first. He jumped up from the table and said, “I've gotta get my laundry started or I can't go out. What time is it?”
    I looked at my watch. “It's 6 a.m. in Hamburg, Germany, if that helps.”
    “Why do you know the time in Hamburg, Mom?”
    “Because that is where the watch was made and set and the directions for resetting it are written in German.”
    “The clock on the oven says it's 11.”
    “That's wrong,” said my husband. “Your mother can't see what she's twirling half the time without her glasses and sometimes when she sets the timer, she resets the clock.”
    “And the one on the VCR?” he asked.
    “... is always 12 and blinking,” I said, “because your father screwed up between steps two and five when the power went out.”
    “God, Mom, you and Dad are out of it. It's like the Twight Zone. How do you two function around here? I'd be lost without technology. This little beeper,” he said, patting his shirt pocket, ”keeps me in touch with the world."
    “He's right, Mom,” said our daughter, “you oughta have one of those signals attached to your car keys and your glasses. Think of the time you could save.”
    It was a subject I hated.
    “Maybe we should have tranquilized you with a dart and fitted you with a beeper to track your migratory habits when you were seventeen and we'd have all slept better,” I snapped.
    “Mom, why do you resist the twenty-first century? You don't even have a home computer.”
    “I don't need a home computer. What would I do with it?”
    “A lot of things. You could store all your personal documents in one place ... your marriage license, your insurance policies, your warranties. Just think, you and Dad could punch up your insurance policies in seconds.”
    “We could die from the excitement,” I said.
    “You could even use a copier around here,” piped in her brother, “to duplicate all of our medical records and your dental bills, not to mention a Christmas newsletter.”
    “We need a copier like the Osmonds need a cavity fighter,” I said.
    “She's hopeless,” they shrugged.
    I sat there alone, toying with my coffee. They had told