My grandfather has probably never seen the movie Raising Arizona, since his TV tastes run more toward sports events and old Charles Bronson or James Bond movies. And if he ever did see that hilarious Coen brothers comedy late one night, flipping through the channels, my guess is that he would not remember much about it. Not really his type of humor.
So my grandfather doesn’t even know that he missed the perfect opportunity to utter one of the most memorable lines from that film. It was the kind of opportunity that few of us will ever experience, although not exactly the kind that we would dream about.
My grandparents love to eat at Steak and Ale. Every Friday night, rain or shine, even when a hurricane is looming on the horizon, they drive to the nearby Steak and Ale. The waitresses know them by name (or perhaps by reputation—my grandmother can be very exacting and perhaps even capricious in her restaurant requests).
My grandmother hasn’t been feeling well for, oh, the past year or two, and my grandfather has taken a couple of bad falls recently, so they move very very slowly in public, watching their feet and the floor ahead of them.
Even though he was paying close attention to the floor and to my grandmother’s warnings about something-or-other as they left the Steak and Ale on Friday night, my grandfather was still attentive and courteous enough to open the door for a man who was rushing into the restaurant.
My grandparents didn’t get a good look at the man, but on their slow, slow hike out to their car from the restaurant door, they agreed that something about him struck them as a little odd. Couldn’t quite remember what, though.
It took them awhile to get to the car, open the doors, make sure my grandmother got in the car safely, make sure her seatbelt was comfortable, and so forth. They were in no hurry.
So they were able to see the man again when he rushed out of the restaurant, having robbed it at gunpoint, and realized that the thing that had struck them as odd when my grandfather opened the door for him was that he was wearing a ski mask. It just hadn’t registered with them when they first saw him.
Well, in their defense, people in New Orleans hardly ever wear ski masks so perhaps they didn’t recognize it as such? Perhaps it was a subtle color, not an attention-grabbing green or red? And my grandfather has had cataract surgery, although he supposedly can see well enough to drive even at night. Still … you know my dad was on the phone to all of his kids today, telling us the story.
After laughing, I felt relieved that my grandparents hadn’t noticed that the guy was masked and preparing to rob the place. Who knows how they might have reacted and what might have happened? Yeah, that could have been funny too, but more likely it could have been awful.
And yet, despite the concern for my grandparents, the film-geek part of me is a little regretful.
Because my grandfather completely missed the best chance he—or most of us—will ever have to say, “Son, you got a panty on your head.”
But if it was a ski mask, the line would not have worked at all!
I was momentarily afraid that the punch line would be something about your grandmother’s insides being a rocky place upon which your grandfather’s seed could find no purchase. Glad that this was not the case and that they came through the robbery safely.