During the 70’s there was a restaurant on Capitol Hill in Seattle called Funky John’s. They specialized in spicy barbecue. Their dishes had four levels of “zippiness” labeled with one through four stars. The menu explained *=hot, **=hot/hot, ***=hot/hot/hot, and ****=you can’t make it hot enough.
Katy and I were engaged in May of 1977. Early that summer we decided to try a dinner at Funky Johns. I had barbecued pork; I don’t remember what Katy had. I had hot/hot and Katy had hot. Hot/hot was too hot. Sometime during the dinner we started arguing about something. While my memory is good about a lot of things I don’t have the slightest idea what we argued about. I just remember that we were both still angry when we left the restaurant. It was one of those arguments that seemed to just sneak up on us for no apparent reason. Even at the time we both knew it was a little thing but there we were, arguing. Maybe the food was too spicy; I don’t know, either way, we had an argument over what was probably a “nothing” thing. I think it took a couple days to work through it.
Sometime later that summer we decided to go back to Funky John’s, partly to try the food and partly to go back and have a dinner there where we didn’t argue. As it turned out we argued about something again. I don’t have any idea what it was, but again, it was one of those things that just snuck up on us for no reason and in the end was something of little consequence. As a result, in our relationship some slang was born. A “Funky John day” or a “Funky John experience” is one where we end up arguing about something that we didn’t see coming and that we probably could have avoided pretty easily.
As the marriage has evolved we have learned to recognize potential Funky John days coming. Still, we can never avoid all of them. In 2008 we moved in a new home. It’s beautiful and we love it. Katy wanted to get some water color paintings for the upstairs hallway. Watch out, going shopping for paintings is a Funky John day waiting to happen. We went to La Conner to look in some galleries she had been in earlier in the year with her sisters. I enjoyed the breakfast we had before we started on our big adventure. We had been in the first shop maybe 5 minutes when I said maybe we could look through some of our own pictures of hikes and trips and enlarge some of them and put that on the walls.
Imagine yourself hearing a very loud buzzer. You know, the kind you would hear when you just gave a really dumb answer that disqualified you on a game show. I didn’t even hear the buzzer. However, in short order I realized I had just started us on the road to a major Funky John day. That was the only shop we went in that day and that was that.
I should add here very carefully that when we are having a Funky John day it is very frustrating to both of us. Sometimes, not usually, but sometimes, we can kid each other out of being angry about something. I should also add that once it starts if one person is angry and the other isn’t yet it can be a woefully big mistake to say something like, “Are we having a Funky John day?” Bad, bad, very bad.
We did finally work through our painting selection trials and tribulations and were able to go another day and pick out some water color pictures of flowers. Actually, they are very cool. I just didn’t know that is what I was looking for when we started out.
Early in the marriage we were doing some furniture shopping. I was sitting on a couch or a chair; I don’t remember which. The salesman had walked to a different part of the store. I do remember that while I was sitting there I expelled some rectal gas. (I farted.) It wasn’t so loud that you could hear it outside in the parking lot but Katy was standing nearby and she certainly heard it. While there is a first time for everything that certainly wasn’t the first time. She said my name, “Jim Pankiewicz”. You know, like you would when you’re scolding a kid. I just laughed. (What did she ever see in me?)
For Christmas this year we decided to get furniture for our living room. We kept it very simple on Christmas and said we would go shopping on President’s Day weekend to try and catch some sales.
Now furniture shopping is not like shopping for fishing tackle. I’m intelligent, I’m educated, but that doesn’t mean I’m very good at furniture shopping. As the years have passed I have gotten better at shopping for things like furniture with Katy. I can readily give an opinion about something when I’m asked. I can readily take it right back when I’m asked to also. In fact I don’t even need to be asked; just a simple look is enough for me to take back my opinion. I’m really good at sitting in something and saying if it’s comfortable or not. Yeah, I’m good at that. Mmmm…; I’m not so good at the matching colors thing. I can make a pick between three or four choices but when it comes to going through racks and racks and racks of different fabric choices I approach being a complete moron.
We went furniture shopping this weekend. We had been out for four hours, as in one, two, three, four. Yup, four hours. When we left home I said, “No Funky John day today. I won’t offer any wild opinions without asking first if it’s okay.” Actually, we can both laugh about that. I think I’m being good about going and looking through more fabric choices than I thought were possible and I think Katy is pretty darn good about getting things down to a few choices for us both to look at.
After we had been in one store for two hours we were sitting on a couch trying to decide if we thought it was comfortable. I heard Russell, our salesman, say, “I’m going to leave you two alone for awhile so you can fart.” I hadn’t been outside for two hours so I was thinking that’s dang decent of you Russell; thanks a lot. It turns out Russell actually said, “I’m going to leave you two alone for awhile so you can talk.” Oh well, too late. I’m not saying I talked and did the other thing too, but I’m not saying I didn’t either. At least it was quiet. That’s such a big improvement over those early years, don’t you think?
Later I said to Katy, “I sure appreciated it when Russell said, ‘I’m going to leave you two alone for awhile so you can fart.’” She just shook her head. I think she’s awful good to take me furniture shopping, heck she’s awful good to take me anywhere for that matter. I thought I was funny and laughed about it a few more times that day.
We had to go back again the next day to decide on fabric and we both really like what we picked out.
Here’s the deal. You know, sometimes it’s a pretty dang good day when you can do what you set out to do and it doesn’t turn out to be a Funky John day. Add a chuckle or two to the day and that’s kind of excellent.
It's the weekend. Please be good. Drive your cars carefully. Ride with people who drive carefully. Treat yourself with respect. Spend time with people who treat you with respect. Treat other people with respect. Talk nice to yourself; you deserve it. I look forward to hearing from you or seeing you. Keep yourself whole physically and emotionally.
P
No comments:
Post a Comment