K A R A L E E

If you’d like to hear, rather than read this post, click the audio recording… right above!

It was past midnight, and let’s just say, if a cop had pulled the car over and looked in the trunk, things might have become…  complicated. Uh… possibly, weird.

You see, I was driving around with a 25 year-old, shirtless man in the trunk. He was eating McDonald’s fries, tunes blasting on his iPad. He happened to be my son, but not the one currently living with me.

The whole thing was all Sara’s doing.

Sara lives in Halifax and attends NSCAD. She’s Warren’s girlfriend, and supposedly, they don’t live together. Seriously, they don’t fool me. Based on what I’ve seen thus far, they spend their nights at one or the other’s place, with infrequent nights apart, which means that technically I live with Sara sometimes too.

Luckily, I like having a pretend daughter-in-law.

When they’re at my place, it gets rather noisy, Warren constantly bellowing her name.

“Saaaaarrrrraaaaa!!!”

He’s either teasing her or warning her that he’s—uh—about to let something go. Yes, I mean exactly what you’re thinking. And hello, we all do it. It’s natural, and boys are preprogrammed to believe the activity is hilarious.

Sara and I both insist on the warnings, so we can leave the room. The strategy worked well when I lived in a big house in Waterloo. But in my mini-apartment, leaving the room means we have to go outside until the danger passes because my apartment is, really, one room.

Anyway, Warren’s bellow is followed by Sara’s bellow.

“Warren! Not again!”

And on and on it goes… pretty much all evening, unless Warren turns on the TV, because for Sara TV is a sleeping pill, especially after she eats, which is pretty much all the time.

Actually, I count on Sara’s appetite. I still have days that I forget I’m not feeding a hoard of ravenous boys and return from the grocery store with Costco-sized everything and then cook a pail of something or other. Then I suddenly remember… hey, there’s only two of us living here, with normal appetites. And that’s when Sara really comes in handy. All of 100 pounds, she’s an effective and reliable fridge-content and leftovers vacuum.

Hmmmm… she and I do text a lot about food. The other week, I texted her a photo of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies, while she was working. It was a special brand of pretend mother-in-law torture.

I also text when I want to go to Cows for ice cream, so I have a partner in crime.

We went to Cows. Sara got one scoop.

Sara doesn’t do dishes, but she’ll sit at the table and yak while we watch Warren do them. She advises me on clothes because I’m having terrible trouble adjusting to all the things I CANNOT show anymore, like say, my knees, my upper arms, my… never mind. Recently, she very patiently explained, in small words, that I must not call my black, army boots by that politically incorrect name, and never mind what that was.

Warren tells Sara that when I’m old, I can live in his basement. Sara says if he’s married to her, that’s fine, as long as the lock is on her side of the door. I’m down with that.

So, Sara also takes present buying very seriously, which leads me back to the story of the son in my trunk.

This year, Sara wanted to get Warren what it is he loves more than anything else in the world. A brother(s).

The only hitch was that his brothers lived back in Ontario, all three of them. (Oh yah… there is fourth Jones brother. He’s my sons’ other-brother-from-another-mother. His name is Tyler, and he might make it into my blog at some point.)

Anyway, Sara figured Ontario was nothing a plane ride couldn’t fix. Bish bam boom… she booked and paid for a flight for the  birthday-present-brother that was available to come for a surprise weekend in Halifax, Graham.

The fun would start with the reveal…

Sara and I came up with an elaborate plan to keep Warren busy while we drove to the airport to pick up Graham, which somehow, we’d pulled off. On the way home came the McDonald’s stop because for some reason Graham and Sara thought it would be hilarious for Graham to be shirtless while eating McDonald’s fries when Warren opened the trunk. Whatever… I can’t say I always get their humour.

It was almost 1am by the time we had Graham, the burgers and pulled into my driveway. Sara and I went in to get Warren, telling him there was surprise in the truck that was too heavy for us to carry. Good boy that he is, Warren followed us out to the car to bring in the mysterious package.

I could hear the music on Graham’s iPad and there were McDonald’s fumes in the air, but Warren didn’t even blink. We live in the supposedly sketchy “North” end of Halifax… french fry smell and phantom music is nothing unusual.

Warren got to the trunk and popped it open. It took him a good minute to figure out the half-naked man in the trunk was his brother. And when he did…

“What? What? You’re here? Graham? You’re here?”

Graham crawled out of the trunk and casually said, “What up baby bro?”

Warren launched himself at Graham like a torpedo, and those boys were tied at the hip the entire weekend. Suffice to say Warren got the best birthday present ever, and Sara was pretty happy the gift was a hit. At least, she was happy until she realized the the bar she had set for herself. And then… more shrieking…

“Oh no! I’m gonna have to top this next year! I’ll never be able to do that!”

With three sons, there’s been a lot of girlfriend comings and goings through the years. Seems the ones that stick around the longest make my sons happy and bring out the best in them. And Sara? Check on both counts.

When I moved to Halifax, I had no idea how life would unfold. Getting a chance to be a pretend mother-in-law, a bit ahead of the game, came as a complete surprise. But I confess, it’s pretty awesome.

PS Thank you Heidi and Dan Panchaud for making and raising an amazing woman. I’m sure glad I get to borrow her for a while I’m out here.

PPS Sara said yesterday that maybe I could live in your house when I’m old, instead of  her and Warren’s basement. You okay with that?

Recordings used in audio version: Adventure by  Disasterpiece, Ebonics by Big L, Prelude from Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho by Bernard Hermann