Schweater?

By the time this posts on Saturday, my wife and I will be in Las Vegas to meet two of our oldest friends, Rita and Barry.    While I have no friends from my side of the family that predate our move to California in 1971, my wife has a number of friends from grammar school, making them friendships with more years under the bridge than we generally mention in public.    They used to live nearby in Irvine, California but the call of grandchildren in the Washington, D.C., area took them from us, something I understand completely.   We love them just as much as when they were here, but we don’t get to see them much, so when they told us they’d be in Vegas on business, we decided to drive over.

Barry used to tell a story about an elderly aunt and uncle of his who had both become hard of hearing in their later years.    He described them as having conversations as if they were living in different universes.    We’ll call them Beverly and Herb and it goes something like this:

Herb: Beverly, have you listened to the weather today?
Beverly:  Sweater?   I don’t need a sweater.  It’s hotter than hell in here.   You keep turning up the heat.
Herb:  Eat?   We’re having dinner with the Goldbergs.   That’s why I want to know the weather.
Beverly:   Stop with the sweater, already.   Are you ready to go to the Goldberg’s?
Herb:   Yes, I know the way.    I have directions.
Beverly:   Take some Pepto-Bismol before we go.

My wife and I have always called it Barry’s Schweater Story … he does it with a Jewish accent.   One of the peculiarities of growing older is that the old folks humor of your fifties becomes the life of your sixties, like you’re living your own jokes.    Yesterday, my wife bought my son some new sheets … for some reason he’s very fussy about the color of his sheets and didn’t like her choice.    As she was headed to the garage to run some errands, she told me about it.   I shook my head and said, That’s ridiculous.    She took two more steps down the hall then came back with a puzzled look.   He’s going to kill us? she said.   No, it’s ridiculous, I repeated, chuckling.   She laughed out loud and said  Schweater?   I don’t need a schweater.      Ain’t getting older grand?

Explore posts in the same categories: feeling older

Tags: friends, humor, Life, marriage

You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.