Tripping Up

You don't need a banana skin to slip, you just need a lyric wrongly uttered.

"Listen, I'm not doing this any more," Jeremy declared, putting his guitar down on the sofa and making to leave by the front door.

"You can't stop now, we're so close," begged Ramesh. "Won't you do this for your best friend? We've been best friends since first grade. That's ten years, now!"

"You always know how to get me, don't you?" Jeremy grumbled, picking up his guitar, sitting down on the sofa and balancing the guitar on his knees. He reached out for the bowl of onion-and-sour-cream chips, missed grabbing it because his guitar was in the way, and there were chips all over the floor.

"Never mind, never mind," Ramesh gasped, darting down and picking up chip after chip. "Thank goodness the bowl was plastic. It didn't break anyway. We can snack on some cabbage instead."

Jeremy strummed on his guitar and sang loudly and tunelessly:

"Oh there's no turning back
On cabbage I must snack
The chips left no yellow stain
On the curtains
But there's one on my brain!
Is there a reason cabbage
Happens to rhyme with garbage?"

"Bravo!" Ramesh applauded. "Your voice is echoing around the room, bounding melodiously across this green wall"

"Right, stop your flattery. Let's just get this done. So you want to take off on the Beatles song The Magical Mystery Tour, for Fathers' Day, right?"

"Precisely. See, Mom dragged Dad along on this trip one time I was at summer camp, and Dad told me later he wasn't sure if it was mystery or misery."

"So you weren't along for this misery tour, it was just your parents. Right."

"And Dad said it cost a lot of money but they did nothing much."

Jeremy picked up his guitar and began to strum and sing.

"The Magical MISERY Tour
Is taking your money away ..."

"Bravo!" yelled Ramesh, again. "You're a genius."

The teens looked at the lyrics sheet their music teacher had kindly lent them. Verse by verse, they spoofed 'Magical Mystery Tour'.

An hour into their composition, they heard the key turn in the lock, then Ramesh's Dad's voice, "Anybody home?"

"Dad! You're home early!"

"Yes, and did I hear a Beatles song coming from out of here?"

"Oh, that was to be a Dads' Day Surprise," lamented Ramesh. "Now you've heard it!"

"Couldn't hear much, just the tune. So start the surprise early. Let me hear what you boys have come up with."

The boys looked at each other. Then, simultaneously, they grinned. Okay, if he wanted it in advance, he'd get it in advance. He'd be even more pleased to hear his feelings reflected in lyrics sung to the tune he loved!

They began.

They continued.

Dad sat stock still, mouth slightly open, staring at them.

They wrapped up with a final TA DAH and a strum, and waited for him to applaud.

He sat there.

Dad just sat there, stock still.

The boys gazed at him.

"Dad?" Ramesh whispered. "Dad?"

Dad shook himself. The glazed look went from his eyes, to be replaced by a blink of great shock.

"You boys! You were going to play that in front of my wife on Fathers' Day?"

"Yes, Dad, isn't it good? Norwegian Wood?" Ramesh quipped. He was trying to make light of what he had understood was a bad situation.

"Man, am I glad I came home early and caught this thing in the bud. If your Mom had heard it, Ramesh ..."

"But we were only ..."

"You were only trying to make it funny. But see, I told you, I never told Mom I didn't like that tour. I told her I loved it. Gosh, if she had heard ..."

"If I had heard what?" came a voice.

"Honey, you're home early!"

"No, I'm not. I'm home at exactly my usual time. I take it I'm the 'she' you just spoke of. I was in time to hear you say you told me you loved something ... what?"

"I love everything, dear, everything!"

"Except at least one thing you've told our son about and not me. What was it, now, out with it."

"Darling ..."

Ramesh's Mom turned to Jeremy. "Jeremy, young man, you seem to be in on this. Now, no more home-made pizza unless you tell me what it is they're talking about."

Home-made pizza is home-made pizza. What's a best friendship in comparison? Jeremy told all.

"Ah, that's a relief," Ramesh's Mom said, when he'd finished. "I thought maybe you didn't like something I didn't know about already."

Moral: Never underestimate a woman's intuition.