Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, July 24, 1995 TAG: 9507250016
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MONTY S. LEITCH
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
I HAD a nephew with me when I went shopping for birthday presents for the Man of the House.
I figured a male opinion would be helpful, despite the age discrepancy between the two males in question. The nephew is 9. The age of the Man of the House will be left to your imagination.
I was going after a garment bag: a handsome piece of black luggage, specifically requested by the Man. But where would be the surprise in that? So, as I told my nephew, I thought I'd also pick out a few clothes to put in it.
He stood patiently by the shopping cart while I sorted through a million pairs of shorts, a thousand pull-over shirts, and hundreds of bathing suits. He held back all complaint as I compared prices, compared colors, compared sizes. He stood stoically while I changed my mind, then changed it back again.
However, once when I turned to him to ask, yet again, ``What do you think of this one?'' I caught the expression on his face.
``Are you bored?'' I asked instead.
``Yes,'' he said. Decisively. But he maintained civility, nevertheless.
And so - it's shameful to admit this - I turned back to the shorts and shirts anyway.
Finally, I was ready to go for the garment bag. We wheeled to the back of the store, got it off the shelf, and dropped it in the shopping cart right on top of all those worried-over clothes.
``Are we finished?'' he asked me.
``We have to pick out a card. Can you stand it?''
He said he could. But while I stood poring over greeting cards, I sent him to another aisle. ``Go look at anything you want,'' I told him. ``I'll be done in a minute.''
Thus, I later found him poring over balloon pumps and collections of party balloons.
``You want one?''
``Maybe.'' He checked the price. He's an extremely careful consumer. ``It's more than I have.''
I said I'd make up the difference - it seemed the least I could do - and so we headed, at last, for the checkout.
Back at home, he helped me string Christmas lights around the front porch for the birthday celebration, and then he concentrated all his attentions on his balloon pump. ``Hang one between every other light,'' he directed, handing me balloon after balloon.
I did what he said.
``Put these by the back door.''
I did what he said.
``Where else?'' he asked me, when his supply of ideas ran out before his supply of balloons did.
``How about a bunch of balloons in place of a ribbon on the garment bag?''
That seemed to him a good suggestion.
So while he blew up a few more balloons, I took tags off the new clothes and seeded them in various zippered pockets of the bag. ``There,'' I said at last.
``Aren't you going to put in a varmint?'' he asked, in deadly earnest.
``A varmint?''
And it is true that, of all the people my nephew knows, the Man of My House, his uncle, is most likely to need, even to use a varmint bag.
Unfortunately, I'd bought a mere garment bag.
But none of us now will ever see it without suspecting varmints in its innards.
Monty S. Leitch is a Roanoke Times columnist.
by CNB