Shoot Me Now Theatre Presents

HUMOR on Aging Parents - If this is my fate, it is doubtful I will ever retire! --

I visited my 80 year old father who winters in a lovely Florida retirement village I respectfully call, “Shoot Me Now”. Dad calls it a 1940s flashback camp, where men are free to be men and women are broads who don’t mind a little ass pinching now and again.

Chrissy, a 30ish perky blonde activity director scurried around the pool and checked each snowbird for a pulse.

“Who is excited for tonight’s musical?” she said in a high-pitched squeal that echoed off the pink stucco and triggered a massive hearing aid adjustment, a few weak cheers and one rattling cough.

“Are you going to the theater, Dad?” I asked. This was never his “thing”.

“You and me. Dinner and a show. It’s a surprise. I’ll say no more,” he whispered, like anybody could hear us.

My father couldn’t keep a secret in exchange for the winning Power Ball numbers and a lifetime guarantee of clear thinking.

And then he said: “It’s about a fairy tale I read to you when you were a little girl.”

“Dad, surprise me,” I said. “With internet porn and reality television, there are so few secrets in life anymore”.

“They’re good seats, too. Down in the front…”

He had my attention, and not in a good way. My Dad made Scrooge look generous. In his wallet, this man kept the first dollar he ever earned, and made me promise to bury him with it. Either the sun had totally baked Dad’s mind or he got the tickets for free.

“…and,” he winked, “it comes with a complimentary beverage.”

There we go. Free tickets. And I hoped 100 proof something.

That night we enjoyed the dinner portion of the evening; a ham and bean supper in the social room of a church near the complex. I was the only person not wearing a medical alert bracelet or drawing a pension. Where the hell was that drink?

Within minutes of the serving committee clearing the dishes, tables were moved and chairs rearranged. Abracadabra! The room became the venue for the theatrical performance to which I had a coveted front row seat. I reached for my Dad’s hand when he started to sneak away.

“Where are you going old man?”

“I need to put on my costume for the show. I’m Dopey!” he said, with too much pride.

“But of course you are.”

Ned, a man with God-awful bean breath, I think, I hoped, leaned in to me. “Your Dad thinks the world of you. That’s why he made sure you got the best seat in the house for the show.”

The lights dimmed. My heart sank.

Ned and his assorted smells took the seat next to me. “Chrissy gave him the role of Dopey because he’s the smallest man here with the biggest ears. And boy can your father whistle!”

Surely I could outrun a room full of sagging nearly-deads. But just as I attempted the getaway, that Chrissy chick appeared center stage with a grin as bright as the Sunshine State on crack.

While the audience was still awake and attentive, she thanked everyone. And I mean everyone. The ladies of the sewing guild who fashioned costumes from recycled Christmas tablecloths. Applause! The arthritic fiddler supported by his understudy, Captain Kazoo from Cleveland. Applause! And the actors, director, choreographer, lighting, the janitor…Applause! Applause! Applause!

The pre-show hoopla was my cue. Figuring if I got down low, really low, and crawled on my hands and knees, they couldn’t catch me, even with their Hurry Canes. In the dim light I’d be out the door before the curtain, sewed together from unmatched bed sheets, got pulled across the sneeze guard.

The baked beans. That would be my excuse. ‘Happens every time I eat those darn little buggers. Didn’t want to be rude after the hours of work by the cooking committee’. I’d lower my head, rub my belly and force a belch. They’d understand, especially Ned.

The fiddler took one long pull of the bow, the audience clapped and I slumped into my premium seating with its complimentary glass of alcohol-free sweet tea.  Chrissy sat stage left near the defibrillator and cued Captain Kazoo who quickly jumped in when the fiddler’s joints gnarled. Audience members on full tanks of oxygen cheered. Others snored. Ned cut a good one.

And then the spotlight illuminated my Dad, and six other dwarfs formerly known as doctors and accountants, all wearing tablecloth togas and paper party hats. The “men who were men” pranced on stage carrying pick axes and shovels and every item smuggled from the “Shoot Me Now” tool shed. As Dad skipped his way through the cardboard forest, his ear-piercing whistle jump started a few pacemakers. “Doc”, a once upon a time dermatologist, stumbled upon (literally) the fair maiden Snow White. The former Honey Bee Queen of 1943 with a complexion that most resembled a strawberry fruit roll-up, revealed her Depends® leaked from dancing. Applause!

For thirty-seven intermission-free minutes we endured the one-time only, never to be seen again, creative interpretation of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.  The men’s inability to sing two consecutive notes in key rivaled a pre-school sing-a-long of You Are My Sunshine. Dancers amazed us with spastic body moves not seen since the bad LSD scare at Woodstock.

At its conclusion, those of us with physical ability to spare (just Ned, Chrissy and me) gave a standing ovation to an appreciative cast and crew. Flowers were tossed in front of the stage outlined with orthopedic shoes. Cheers of Bravo! Bravo! went on forever. Forever.

At the last bed sheet call, and there were three, Chrissy took several well-deserved bows. My Dad’s eye twinkled and he smiled in a way I hadn’t seen in a long time. He swept the flowers with his Dopey broom, smiled at me, and on the way off stage, pinched Chrissy’s ass.

Shoot me now. Please.