Over the hills and through the woods to grandmother’s house we go.
“Hey Fred, look out at the hills along the side of the road and see if you can spot any deer. When there’s snow on the ground, they’re easier to spot!”
“Don’t see any. Why do they call them DEER anyways? Are they made of potatoes or something?”
“Huh? What does the word deer have to do with potatoes?”
“Well, they look like potatoes with legs so that’s why.”
Alright.
I always say that Fred and I think alike but even this one has me lost.
A few days or so later I am in the shower and he knocks. I know it’s him because if you can’t recognize the family member who is coming up or down the stairs by the sound of their gait, can you even consider them to be family?
“I’m in the shower but if you have to pee, you can go ahead. Just don’t flush!”
“Wow, it’s like my mouth is filled with a wall of hot pillow. I can’t breathe in here, there’s so much steam.”
“Smoke too. There’s incense burning.”
“They should make rooms with pillow walls!”
“They do.”
“Ack, Ok, Loveyoubye!”
“Loveyoubye!”
Over the hills and past the makeshift memorial dedicated to the man who fell off the bridge and to his death on the path below, to the dentist’s office we go.
“See that cross right there?”
My other son Alex says he doesn’t see it. He doesn’t know what he’s looking for.
“Yeah, see it right there! It’s next to the white mounds that look like huge snow piles but are actually dirt. I mean, I guess they could be fluffy mashed potatoes for all we know. I’ve never tried them.”
“Oh yeah!”
“A man died there a couple years ago when he stopped to help someone who had crashed into the guardrail. Apparently he slipped and fell off the concrete barrier on the bridge and fell to his death on the road below.”
“Oh wow” Said, not very convincingly, because what do you even say to that? It’s not deer potatoes but it’s in the same cottage kitchen.
“I’ve always wanted to find that road and follow it to where it leads. I never remember to check it on google maps when I am at a computer.”
“Yeah…”
…
“Meow”
I meow to fill awkward silences with people I am close to.
Why is the space awkward? I don’t know. Am I checking to make sure they didn’t get mad at me in the 10 second span of too-quiet silence?
Maybe.
“Would you rather be on the bus on your way home from school or in this car on the way to the dentist?”
“Uhhh, definitely the bus.
I also ask questions to keep them from realizing they’d rather be anywhere other than with me right now.
“So, uh what are they gonna do at the dentist?”
I had selfishly forgotten he was probably pretty nervous and my distraction techniques were not coming close to quelling that anxiety.
“Well, you have two cavities. They have to drill out the rotten parts inside your teeth and then fill them up with … uh, I’m not sure what it is exactly. Cement? No. Plastic? Maybe a type of plastic. They used to use silver but now the material is white to match the rest of the tooth.”
“Will it hurt?”
“They do numb it first.”
“Oh okay, good.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell him how they numb it.
For his little brother, the dealer of potato deer non-sequiturs, they numbed the gum with a salve before inserting the needled syringe filled with novocaine. I wasn’t sure if they would do that for a 175lb 14-year-old. I decided to wait and see and keep quiet.
Meow.
Lucky for Alex they numbed it before they numbed it.
The sound of the drill. They should make novocaine for the ears.
Would you rather be sitting in a dentist chair while a masked man bores holes into your newest bones or be on the side of the road helping a young man who’s having a really bad night, albeit not as bad as yours is going to get?
Potatoes have eyes, not legs, Fred!
Also, lucky for them they don’t have ears in this corner of a second-floor office building in Moon Township.
Ears stuffed with hot pillows might fix this dilemma.
Roads covered in soft pillows or a layer of mashed potatoes could have fixed Jim’s.
Wood Shed Writers 
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