$3 chickens
03.07.2003Woke up early today to meet my parents and my brother Sam for breakfast at Klein's Bagels. They were on their way to Chicago to visit Novalí. I was glad to see my mom looking chipper, despite eating a cupful of pills for breakfast.
As always, we talked about everything, laughing most of the time. Sam and I talked computers, drooling over the new Apple product line. My parents are two kids, constantly interrupting each other and laughing at their own stories. Every anecdote comes complete w/ voice impersonations, frantic gestures, and punctuated by laughter. In short, a good time.
According to Mom, I need to see My Big Fat Greek Wedding (my parents through it was funny) and For Love or Country (the story of a Cuban trumpeter who defected to play w/ Dizzy Gillespie). My parents also walked out on Gods and Generals - which was too religious even for their taste (they walked out on it, too!). My mom's been watching more movies lately, which is amusing, since she used to hardly know anything about pop culture.
Dad's a big movie buff and usually goes to the movies alone (once all his sons left home). My mom's taste in entertainment has traditionally been, well, um, plain (she really likes A West Side Story). But she's gotten much more hip lately - which just goes to show that drugs aren't all that bad. Her lack of attention to pop culture, however, does have its problems. I call attention to the Mel Gibson episode. My dad's been a huge Mel Gibson fan since Mad Max (he likes gritty action movies). A while back, Dad casually mentioned that he was going to see the new Mel Gibson movie. That perked Mom's attention; she was familiar w/ the just-released What Women Want. It's important to point out at this time that my mom does not like action movies, is very squeamish, and disapproves of "spicy" language. Of course, Dad instantly whisked her away to the movie theater to see Payback. They recently reconciled w/ Signs.
And so, the conversation quickly flowed from tangent to tangent. Until. Mom got suddenly excited about the recent National Geographic issue. My parents couldn't contain themselves and had to take turns telling Sam and I about it. Ready? There's a giant zoo, in China, for safari expeditions. The kind where you drive through and see zebras and lions and giraffes. In China. You can buy chickens for $3. And toss them to the lions from your car window.
"You just roll your window down and toss it to the lions!" my dad's wonderstruck as he speaks. "You just roll down your car window right there!" He makes the universal hand gesture for rolling down a car window.
"Oh!" Mom frantically interrupts. "And lambs. You can toss them lambs, too. Right out your window!"
"They cost $37, though." Dad's a little disappointed.
"But you see the lions right out your window!" And my mom just turns into all smiles imagining what that must be like.
"It's in China," my dad explains.
Oh, yeah. They definitely should go.
Posted by Miguel at 12:01 PM
Comments
That is the funniest thing to imagine in the world. Your parents feeding chickens to lions.
Posted by: dan at March 12, 2003 03:10 PM
They definitely should go to Bangkok, where they can have lions licking ice cubes right off their palms. It's very thrilling to know how rough a lion's tongue is.
And they can also pose side by side with tigers, take pictures, etc. (no kidding)
Posted by: Stephanie at March 12, 2003 03:11 PM