2 Christmases

I am relaying this story to you as it was told to me by my mother. I have not heard my father's version of events mainly because I haven't asked and also because I don't care. I think you'll agree once we get to the punch line.

Picture it. Not Sicily but Goldston during the great snow of 2018. It was a blizzard that shut down the state for 5 days for myself and other teachers. Of course, in North Carolina that equates to about 2-4 inches of actual snowfall. Instead of the metric system we use the redneck system which states that southerners cannot drive if they can see snow from their car. Driving safely around any ice is an instinct we just don't have, like how northerners don't have manners.

It started snowing Wednesday afternoon. All after-school activities had been cancelled by the school system and around the county teachers and students waited for the phone call that would release them from school the following day. But at 6:00 PM it had only just started snowing. And it was my grandpa's birthday. So my parents and brothers headed 5 miles down the road to deliver his birthday present.

They drove to his house, gave him his present (probably a DVD or bullets) and after chatting for 15 minutes or so they headed home, completely underestimating the wintry mix that awaited them.

A car in front of them started to slide off the road. So my parents pulled over and left my brothers in the car while they tried to help push this car back on the road. However, another car headed their way and everyone had to move to avoid becoming roadkill so the car slid into the ditch, but the couple inside wasn't hurt. At some point, help was promised so my parents decided to try to finally get home. My mother, affectionately known as Missy, gave the couple her cell phone number in case they needed a place to stay and my parents got back in my mom's car with my brothers.

Unfortunately, while they were outside competing in an unofficial world's strongest man competition, snow had built up around the car tires and it wouldn't budge. My mother and brother got out to push the car while my dad, affectionately known as Carlos because his name is actually Charles and he hates it when I call him Carlos, steered and gave it gas. My brother was wearing a basketball jersey and shorts because he's a white male and refuses to dress appropriately for the weather. Missy told my dad that if he could get the car going to just keep driving slowly and they would catch up.

Once they got the car moving, my brother yelled motivations to my mother in what I can only imagine was Biggest Loser-style (having not witnessed this particular exercise or the show Biggest Loser). As they ran, breathless, uphill in the snow, my father kept driving. My brother was so confused and showed my mom but she assured him that once Carlos got to the top of the hill he would stop, he was just trying to get on level ground and not let gravity win this battle. She begrudgingly gave my under-dressed brother her coat and he continued to lovingly shout words of encouragement at her while they jogged onward.

After about half a mile of this nonsense, my mother and brother finally make it to the top of the hill. No Charles. At this point my brother is livid. My mother gives my father the benefit of the doubt and tells my brother that he's probably at his sister's house a little bit down the road, waiting for them there. So they run-slash-walk another half mile to my aunt's house. Again. No Charles.

My mom uses my aunt's phone to call the house where my youngest brother answers the phone because my father is on my mother's cell phone with the stranded travelers from earlier. My father's excuse for leaving his wife of 30 years and firstborn son stranded in the snow was that he decided to go home and return with my brother's car because it would drive better in the snow. However once he got home, my mom's cell phone rang so he answered it and forgot all about his family members getting frostbite.

Here's a question only I have been brave enough to ask...who is the beneficiary of my mother's life insurance policy? What about my brother's? I'm willing to bet half of the settlement that it's my dad.

Eventually, my uncle used his 4 wheeler to take my mom and brother home and pick up the couple that got stranded. My mother assured the couple she wasn't a serial killer and welcomed them into her home while they waited on someone to pick them up. Now here's where things get crazy...the couple had a dog. And my mother, who I swear would relegate a fish tank to the back porch, let said dog into her home. He probably even ate and drank in the living room, an activity my brothers and I weren't allowed to do until our late teens.

For the next few hours my youngest brother stood cautiously in the corner, lest the dog touch him and besmirch his new phone while my mom chatted up the couple and I can only assume that she offered up some of her precious Diet Sunkist. Someone came to pick them up around midnight and Missy and her new friends parted ways. No word yet on whether there will be a Come From Away sequel written about that night.

So my conclusion from all of this is that my parents are getting divorced. They have both denied this allegation but I'm going to start planning on 2 Christmases-and double the presents-anyway.