Parents, why they are, how they are

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Bonjour, my humble and salacious readers.

I’m at DN’s place in Glasgow, doing my thang and doing it well.  I’m beginning to think of food at this moment as DN is spelling out Spanish football players out loud like a man conjuring up an illegal Venezuelan immigrant.  Just so you know, my great uncle three times over is from Venezuela.  Please don’t take offence on everything I say.  It’s very annoying.

So the past couple of weeks were packed with first timers.  First time going down to Bon bon’s parents’ place in south of France, obviously first time meeting the mom, and teaching a gay guy how to swing a raquette like a man.  It’s actually possible.

For some reason, I always get nervous with fathers of my friends, it’s especially daunting and ball tightening to meet the father of your  woman whom you share a flat, feed the same cat, sit on the same sofa, and watch DVDs at night in night clothes.

As you may well not be aware, Papa Bon and I have already battle it out for Bon bon supremacy in the past.  A man in his late 40’s, he has a miraculously shiny dome, with tremendous knowledge of architecture and circus crammed into it.  I’m not joking, the man LOVES his buildings and clowns.  The one thing I absolutely adore about him is not his tete, rather his brilliantly accented French English.  Although I have met enough Frenchers to realize that they do and can and would like to sometimes impress you with their, “Oui, ma eeenglish is non so bon”, none of them had the enunciation and punctuation and the -tions that Papa Bon has.  His English is so French that somehow it makes me feel I’m in some John Cleese film.

Our first ever meeting was in Paris where Bon bon and I were to meet him near our (her) old flat for an introductory dinner.  We were destined to meet him near a big garden near our (her) flat, but waiting  for him was a fruitless affair.  We’ve circled the garden at least 4 thousands times and finally Bon bon let out a shriek that could have come out of a gutted kangaroo.  A man with Papa Bon’s stature and his signature head was walking towards us.  It was dusk and dusk makes everything rather dusky, yet shiny.  As the man approached and Bon bon with failing arms and muscular legs counter-approached him, she realized that it was another man from south of France with similar head who was not her father.  I on the other hand was over the hill and back into the woods nervous that I approached the man with a vibrato falsetto of “Bonjour”.  The man was obviously distraught and he scampered away like an injured Lassie.  Papa Bon eventually showed up and as these things go, he was looking for us as well.

Since then, I have met him one more time and if everything is according to me and what I opine, we are like two sushi in a stomach.

I hope.

Which leaves me with the only obstacle between Bon bon and my happiness was the mom.

Not that I was ever threatened physically by Mama Bon or that she appeared in my dreams with a Pinhead motif non-Halloween costume daring me to get cozy with her daughter.

On the contrary, our first meeting was under a very unusual circumtance.

I was coming back late from Salzburg one evening last week, whilst Bon bon was away at her parents’ place, and her parents were staying at ours in Paris.  Got it?  Good.  Coming back to a desolate house filled with objects unseen in my life, my head spinned and lurched in an unusual direction.  Mind you, Bon bon did meet my mother, my grandmother, my 3 great aunts without my tremendous self next to her, having to spend an evening entertaining them with her Frenchness, with most of them not speaking English nor French, but then hold on a second.  Her trials and baguettes had nothing on me.  I had to meet her parents on my own, without the aid of Neko.

I did calm my self down eventually, as Bon bon informed me that they were coming back around midnight.  Obviously they were at the circus.  Parents these days, I tell you.  I wondered back and forth and tried to climb the walls, failed, and decided that I should just give up and sleep on the sofa in the living room.  Due to the entrance of our flat being closer to the living room than the love shack, it was a wise decision.  The next morning was a 5AM wake up and a bike ride to Gare de Lyon, hopping on the French version of the Shinkansen so that Bon bon and I can party it up at the parents’ place.

Figuratively 2 seconds later I was in sleep mode, there was a commotion at the main door to our flat.  Thinking that either it was a) Neko or b) our wife beating neighbour, alert mode was on.  It turned out to be meet the parents, me in slightly tighties and t-shirt, them walking into our flat with their shoes on.  I also realized that Neko was down south, but that’s besides the point, really.  My instinct told me to tell them about the shoes off policy in our household, but there’s no point not scoring any minus points now.  The handshake with the Papa Bon was firm yet tingly, the bizou with Mama Bon slightly off target as I still have no idea which cheek to start with.

Just so you know, my woman is hot.  Not because she’s my woman, but in general she’s just hot.  So, suffice to say that Mama Bon sort of kind of looked like Bon bon, but older.  Also for some reason she was very nervous.  There were warnings from my woman about the perpetual nervousness of the Mama Bon, but it was contagious.  Jolting into attention,  I felt as I have done something very wrong.

Therefore it was a mega sale of a surprise when I came face to face with the mother who bore the child who is my woman at her house few days later.  She was 11 hundred thousands times more relax in her domain.  But no, my job was nothing close to being finitito.

When I was told that she was a nervous person, compounded that her nervousness went into hyper drive when she was told to relax, my job was set in cold Steve Austin:

I was going to make her laugh.

Not a sniffle, not a snigger, not one of them unavoidably irritating laughs that Japanese women between the ages of 18 and 55 are legally bound to do when they feel a bit weird.  I wanted her to throw her head backwards a la Linda Blair on her happy day.  I wanted to see them beautiful eyes (smaller than Bon bon’s) flood with H2O.  I wanted to see her in fits, proceeded with facial paralysis.

To utterly and unforgivably yet charmingly I admit to you, my minions, I have no recollection as to when and how I made her laugh.  This could probably be blamed on the glaringly noticeable two solid glasses of cognac with white wine which was FORCED down and further rupturing my already funkadelic internal organs by Papa Bon.  Yes, it’s not the truth, but I want someone to be bad besides me sometimes.

Seeing her smile made me feel as if I have for once did something nice and strangely productive.

But by all accounts, smashing her car door into a pole as we bid adieu to Papa Bon at the station before going back to Paris probably will not earn me any further bonus points.

T’il next time.

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