The Summer We Said Goodbye [Installment 11]

Flocked

A trip to the grocery store with my dad was as much of an adventure for him as it was for me. And the Jewel did not disappoint.

The store looked like a holiday showdown, with red and green ribbons going toe-to-toe with blue and white.

The lot was full, so my dad squeezed us into a yellow-hashed spot right up front, feigning an innocence that effectively immunized him from consequences.

“Not you, too, Tony,” he cried as we crossed the threshold.

“Max! How’s the family? Merry Christmas to you.”

“Happy Holidays, you mean,” he winked with a grin.

My mom was a prodigious note-writer, and her list for us was precise to the brand. There was a lot of information on that 3x5 index card, and my dad was feeling the heat.

“C’mon, Cosimo, take hold of the cart. And don’t let go.”

We weren’t the only family missing key ingredients. The aisles were packed with other dads on hectic scavenger hunts. And we wended our way into the fray in search of our first provision.

“Cornstarch, cornstarch, cornstarch…Where do you think they hide the cornstarch in a joint like this, huh, Coz?”

I couldn’t read yet, but had a good enough sense of the store’s layout from previous visits with my mom to point our way forward.

“Cosmo from the cosmos,” he cheered when we found our first item. “How’d you know that?”

We ticked our way down the list to the final bullet.

“Something for the table…”

He rolled it around his mouth like a trick question and shoved the card in my face.

I shrugged.

We backtracked down the aisle.

“Something for the table, something for the table, something for THE TABLE,” he crowed, wheeling us back to the front of the store and flapping his hands like a TV game show host.

“Something for the table!”

Boughs of holly decked the wall, and miniature Christmas trees lined the floor.

It was the poinsettias that caught my eye. Their red, flat bracts glistened in a sheen of glitter and snow. I chose the prettiest one I could find and stood next to it.

“The Lobster plant it is,” my dad decreed without giving it a second thought.

“Now, what d’ya say we blow this popsicle stand!”

We returned home like conquering heroes.

But my sisters were having none of it. No sooner had we set the bags on the kitchen counter than they pounced, passing each item to my mom for inspection.

We waited for her verdict.

When none came, my dad clapped me on the back.

That’s when my sister saw it.

“What’s that?” she asked, pointing to the poinsettia in my arms.

She’d been the baby of the family for a full eight years until I usurped the gig.

“Is that flocked?” She asked, spitting the word out like it was toxic.

“Oh, my god, it is. It’s flocked,” another gasped.

“Mom, look what Cosmo did.”

My mother shushed them.

“What’s this?” she asked, examining the plant in my arms.

Looking to my dad for backup but receiving none, I quoted her words back to her.

“Something for the table.”

The room erupted in derisive laughter.

“Oh, no, honey, we don’t do flocked.”

Flocked?

“What’s flocked?”

“You are!” My brothers whooped from the den where they were watching the Bears game.

“Cosmo’s flocked!”

“You are so flocked.”

“Flocked, for sure.”

“But it’s pretty,” I insisted. “It’s for the table.”

“But, it’s pretty. It’s for the table,” my brothers taunted with limp wrists before one of them grimly whispered in my ear, “Bro, you are seriously flocked.”

“What were you thinking, Max?”

“What could I say? It’s what he wanted. I didn’t want him to cry.”

Cry?

In no time, the ruckus had passed, and everyone returned to their original activities — my mother and sisters to the meal, my father and brothers to the game, and me holding the flocked holiday plant, whatever that was.

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You can find an archive off past installments here.