My friend Carlos turned 63
yesterday, he’s been my bud (in my top five) since I met him in 1978. Carlos is
one of the funniest people I know and one of the sweetest.
Carlos, who’s twelve years
my senior, likes the same things I do. We share a love of “The Boys”, that’s
Laurel & Hardy for you non Son’s of the Desert. We are both big kids at
Christmas and it’s not really Christmastime until I hear Carlos on the phone
singing a slightly blue version of The Christmas Song to me. We both love the
Beatles and spicy Mexican food and we both LOVE to laugh and I mean really love
to laugh. We spent 2 hours on the phone yesterday laughing about old times.
Here’s one of my favorite
Carlos stories:
At the time I met Carlos I
was married to Paula. Paula was a notoriously mediocre cook. She could bake like
Betty Freakin’ Crocker, but cooking…uh…no. I used to tease her that she was the
only person I knew that used the house smoke detector as a timer for cooking.
Paula is also the only person who, with a straight face, tried to serve me some
sort of a green mystery meat item as a meal. And I don’t mean green tinted, I
mean Happy Patty’s Day green.
Carlos and his wife Beverly
had invited us over for a cookout and we offered to bring a few side dishes.
Well, something or another happened on the way to “making” the sides and we
never did. But on the way to Carlos’ we stopped by KFC, bought some coleslaw
and potato salad then proceeded to put them our
Tupperware so as not to look like dumb bells for bringing “store bought” instead
of homemade.
Uh oh…Carlos flipped over
“Paula’s” coleslaw and before we knew what was happening he bragging all over
the party that this was indeed the best coleslaw he had ever tasted. Now bear
in mind, at this time, Carlos weighed in at well over 300 pounds, he knows
food, if he says it’s good…IT’S GOOD.
We didn’t have the heart to
tell our secret and so the tangled web began. Over the next ten years or so
every time there was a party, Carlos begged Paula to make “her” coleslaw. And
so she did, party after party…The Colonial’s coleslaw into our Tupperware.
All was going well at the party;
Carlos was smiling having just finished his last bite of slaw. He turned, and I
now remember all of the following in slow motion, he turned toward the trash
can to throw his plate away. He stepped on the pedal, the silver trashed lid
popped opened with a whoosh. I saw what was happening and screamed, “No!”, but
I was too late.
Carlos looked into the trash
can then looked back at the two of us, then back into the trash can. A look of
bewilderment, hurt and confusion crossed his face as the deceit of a decade
came crashing down, for there at the bottom of the trash can was the sad, half
crumpled, empty styrofoam KFC container. The few slivers of cabbage and carrots
plus the undeniable drips of slaw juice made the evidence overwhelming, we were
busted…BIG TIME.
In a low, almost whispery,
circumflex inflection, Carlos mumbled, “Heeeeeyyyyyy”. That one word said it
all, it said, “Hey, I‘ve been duped, I’ve been lied to, for ten long years you
guys have deceived me”. But that’s all he said, “Heeeeeyyyy” …and then…and this
is Carlos to a tee… he started to giggle and that giggle turned into laugh and
that laugh turned into a belly laugh.
Carlos has a phrase that
uses to show mock disgust. He uses this phrase when he finds something funny
that maybe shouldn’t be funny. He turned to Paula and I, who were sweaty and
red with embarrassment, and said, “You guys are terrible”, then he laughed once
more and walked back to the party.
Over the years Carlos and I
have laughed to tears over this and will continue to do so as long as we have
breath.
In this Holiday Season the
best wish I can have for you, is that you have a “Carlos” in your life. Merry
Christmas.
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