My father has certain wishes in life. I mean, he has a billion things he wants to do. But the wishes I'm talking about here all involve...well, I guess they involve playing pranks on people. One such wish is in regards to a restaurant not far from our house, at Dempster and Harlem, called Kappy's. Kappy's is one of those diners/family restaurants where you can get
a sammie and soup and fries and your coffee and pie for $5.99. Just like in the old days. The hobo days. It's nothing special...it does the job. Anyhow, my father's wish is to go to the giant 6-foot tall sign in the middle of the night and paint the letter "R" between the "K" and the "A." What's that spell? KRAPPY'S. Hilarious.
It's important that you know this, because one of the other wishes my father has involves an across the street neighbor who my parents call The Mayor (this must be where I get my talent for making up clever nicknames for people...The Mayor?). They call him The Mayor because "he's always in everybody's business." Yeah, I don't really get it either. Anyhow, The Mayor puts up a lot of Christmas decorations during the season every year. It takes him days and days to do it. Some of these decorations include those moving reindeer that are made out of christmas lights. I think he topped off at six of them this year. My father was never completely clear about what his wishes were for these reindeer, but it was implied. More on that later...
Let's skip around. Let's set the scene a bit...
It was the Saturday before Christmas and my parents decided to host a party at their house. Probably about 50 people attended; friends, family, maybe a stranger or two here and there. It was a slightly scandalous night, full of food and drink and karaoke and singing and dancing. Well, I guess it was actually a pretty regular night.
By about 12:00, most of the guests had left. There were some stragglers, mostly including the cousins, Luai and Lameis. We did the usual...we played guitar hero, some people had a snack, others had that "one more drink" of the night that would eventually push them over the edge and lead to vomitting at their parents' house...always a good experience. Finally, at about 1 am, Luai and Lameis left to go home. My siblings and I continued playing guitar hero for about another hour. When, at 2 am, we finally decided it was time to go to bed, Emil reached in his pocket to look at his cell phone, which had one new text message. It was from Luai. It simply read: go look outside.
I don't remember exactly what happened here, but I know there was a collective "OH SHIT" from the three of us as we raced upstairs to look out at our neighbors yard. There, on the front lawn, were christmas light reindeer, in all their glory, basically in sexual poses. In a few different positions. Two were doing it from the back, and two were 69ing. Yikes. Laughing hysterically and telling each other to shut the eff up because somebody would hear, we stood at the front door reveling in our wonderful family moment. Truly, this was a moment of love. Out father's dream had come true.
Until he was a TOTAL BUZZKILL!!!!!!
My parents, of course, were awake at this hour. I don't know why. They heard our hysterical laughing and rushed to see what was happening. My father took one look at the reindeer and said "OH NO....this is terrible. This is very stupid. He should not have done this." The mood changed immediately as we realized my father's dreams were clouded with guilt; the guilt of The Mayor's reindeer being set up in compromising positions.
Anyhow, to make a long story slightly shorter, my father made Emil sneak over there with him and put the reindeer back where they belonged. At 2 am. Bored. Until...I get up to my bedroom and check my cell phone. I also have a text from Luai. My message reads: don't forget to check the trees.
"Oh shit" I whisper to myself. I immediately get Emil who reads the message, giggling and covering his mouth and whispering "oh shit!" We look outside from my window, and lo and behold, there's a fucking reindeer ten feet up in the Mayor's tree. Luai really outdid himself this time. We decided to play innocent and pretend to not know anything of it.
The next day, our father is still standing by his "this is sooo stupid" viewpoint. Apparently The Mayor had come to ask my father about it, since some of our decorations had been knocked over during the night too(due to strong wind, not a hilarious cousin). My father tried to pull some guilt stuff about how The Mayor was so old and he took so long to decorate his house. He seemed to genuinely feel bad; he seemed a bit consumed by it. I was getting pretty sick of it all, and starting to feel bad myself, when I caught him in the kitchen leaning up against the counter, looking thoughtful. He looked up at me and with a tight-lipped smile he said "you know, I just cannot stop laughing at what Luai did. I just cannot stop laughing. I cannot believe what he did."
God. Finally, Dad. Finally. Your dreams came true. Your dreams of having christmas light reindeer posed like they were doing it finally came true. All because of cousin Luai.
And that, my friends, is what Christmas is all about.
