Woulda, shoulda, coulda

There was no mistaking that it was Mrs. Davenport. I knew it was her without even looking.

I had taken my wife's car to a car wash and was trying to get 5 minutes of reading done while I was waiting for the guys to wash it, dry it, and deliver it back to me so I could let the kids smear twinkie filling and chocolate milk on the inside of the windows again...

And I recognized a voice that belonged to the mother of an acquaintence from high school. In fact, her son, Jay, and I had been in scouts together for several years, and I had been over to their house several times. Fifteen years ago.

I'm cursed with this overactive memory that clings to details, so sometimes I recognize someone, know lots about them including every interaction I've ever had with them, and then when I go and say something I get the blank stare of complete non-recognition. This happened a year or so ago at the same exact car wash (probably been that long since I had gotten the car washed)--I recognized a man from my old neighborhood who had twin daughters, one of whom I had worked with for about six years while we were in high school (I didn't mention it to him, but she had paid me $100 to write her term paper and she got a better grade on hers than I got on mine!)--I knew these girls since we were four years old, as well as about ten members of their extended family, so I spoke to him and asked about his daughters. Sadly, I learned that one of them had died of cancer (not the cheater).

This is what I learned from these girls as we grew up in the same neighborhood: 1) Girls go to the bathroom sitting down 2) Fried baloney really stinks up the house and is gross and 3) The Beatles songs are cool--we used to listen to their parents' old records in their house (while they were frying baloney). All of these I consider to be valuable life lessons, and I owe a debt of gratitude to this family.

Not that I didn't care about the other one dying, I mean it was a sad story, but I hadn't seen her in twenty years so (callously I say) I probably won't miss her greatly. I wondered what I had gotten myself into, sitting there at the car wash talking to her dad in front of 10 strange people. But I felt obligated to hear the whole death tale and I knew that the dad had no idea who I was, and it seemed a little awkward for him to be telling me this very personal story--but we both lived through the experience unscathed.

So, when I heard the unmistakable sound of Jay's mom's graveley voice, I had to do a quick evaluation of life convergence to determine if we had interacted enough to meet the criteria for me to not seem like a stalker who needs to get a life.

We were friends in scouts.
Their family bought me a nice gift when I graduated.
Went swimming at their house about 20 times.
Did some work for Jay's dad and got paid very well.
Remembered his sister's name...
Knew a little about Jay--he is a multi-millionaire now and has been on talk shows. At least he's not dead and I'm forced to listen to a verbal obituary...

Yeah, I guess that's enough to briefly say "hi" and "give my best to Jay".

As I started to speak to this bewildered lady, my mind filled in a critical incident: "The Car Story". Yeah, it would have been helpful to have remembered THAT a little sooner...

The story could actually be called "The Spitting Incidents of 1987", because it all revolved around spitting. Jay had bought a new bitchin' camaro and had pretty much turned obnoxious, peeling out all over town and picking up groupies that just wanted to hang out in his car. It was a cool car, but I wasn't really into cars so it didn't mean much to me. Jay did lots of bragging and big talking, so that was a little tiresome. It didn't occur to me in the least to be jealous of the camaro--getting a car was so out of the realm of possiblities for me that it just went over my head.

But my buddy, Cameron, was burning up about it--it really bugged him. Cameron had a 1967 baby blue mustang which he always seemed to be fixing up. Driving home from a scout meeting one time, we saw Jay's camaro parked in a lot, and Cameron pulled over. And, sitting in the car still, he spit on the windshield about 20 times. I know it's quite convenient to say that I remember birthdays of people I haven't seen in 20 years, but I can't remember something significant like whether or not I joined in the spitting incident. It's not beneath me, but I seriously can not remember doing it. I do remember being a little surprised that Cameron had such rage in him over a silly car, and that there wasn't anything specific that sparked it.

I'm not sure how Jay figured out who it was, but a week or so later he got revenge on us--he went to my younger brother, Don, and spit on him, maybe even giving him a shove for good measure. I'm sure that Don went ballistic on him, but the whole thing became an embarrassing incident and somehow violated pretty much every point of the Boy Scout code or something tragic like that, so we all got invited to a meeting at the scout leader's house and Jay's dad did most of the talking. Seems that he was afraid that we might all retaliate against Jay. He even tearfully and convincingly explained that he thought of Cameron and I like his own sons (Hey Dad, can I have a camaro, too??) It all ended there, though.

So, that would have been a good detail to remember before talking to Jay's mom.

Luckily, she didn't remember me and thought I was an Amway salesman or Jehova's witness or something, and jumped back about a foot when I went up to her, said "hi" and introduced myself.

We engaged in mostly small talk, and she was pretty guarded about saying anything too personal.

I asked about Jay, she mentioned that "one of his houses" is here in town, and he visits it occasionally.

I asked about his sister, Carmen, who was two years younger--I said, "she must have turned out to be so pretty"--I know, this was a risky thing to say. Her mom gave me a blank look and didn't reply. I bet she inherited the "blow up like Violet on Willy Wonka" gene (that scene disturbed my 6-year-old Ryan so much that he had to leave the room).

I asked about the dad (since I'm like a son to him)--The response was interesting: She looked down, fumbling a little aimlessly for something in her purse, and said "Well, we're just going to have to see about him and if he behaves himself. Right now, he's in trouble." And that was that.

After she asked me politely about my family, during which time I realized she had no idea who I was and of course no idea about my family. I asked her to give my regards to Jay and we parted.

Then it hit me--It would have been well worth it to pay for her car wash and tell her that I owed it to Jay. Damn, that would have been funny.