STORY 2......DAMN SEAGULL

When I was a kid, my dad had an old Ford Econoline van that we lovingly called the Green Monster. It was one of those extra long vans. It had two bench seats in the back that it came with. My dad had this thing for years and he loved it. We used to drive to Florida every March break, a 24-hour drive. And this one year, my dad decided he was going to get the van extra ready. He had pulled the old bench seats out, and he built custom benches and carpeted them so they were comfortable to sleep on, so us three kids each had our own spot to sleep. He then added new carpet all the way through the back of the van and then spent the day polishing and preparing the van. He washed everything carefully. He put the Armor All on the tires, did the rims with SOS pads and shined up the chrome. He started turtle waxing the whole thing, hand buffing it. He spent all day. I was coming home from a bike ride down the driveway and I just see my dad go, "no, no, no, no, no." And he's looking at the sky. And somehow, if you hear him tell it, the seagulls he had chased off the roof at work the day before found out where he lived, and they got together a gang and waited for him to finish waxing his van. And sure enough, they bombed the van. They covered it from one end to the other in fresh seagull poop, and there's my dad saying words I had never heard him say, yelling at the sky with a fist, blasting it with his hose as if he could reach 100 feet up. My mom quickly ushered me inside, and I watched from the window as my dad started the whole process over. Every once in a while, pausing to shake his fist at the sky. And sure enough, he was finally done. And somewhere late that night, my dad finished re-waxing and polishing his van and came in to go to sleep so we could leave the next morning early on the drive to Florida.

So we get in the van early that next morning, still sleepy eyed. And, honestly, I think we slept most of the way to Florida. We would stop as my dad liked to do, for a malt milkshake and a hamburger. We finally get to Florida. Of course, my dad, as he often did after something upset him, He wanted an ice cream. So he orders himself the biggest vanilla ice cream he can find, and we walk down the boardwalk along the ocean. My dad gets a drip on his hand. He goes to lick it. And not a small lick, a rick lick. The biggest lick you can imagine with every inch of his tongue available. And then he makes it, the five year old boy face. And he gags. You see a seagull once again, had got my dad. It wasn't ice cream. It was bird droppings. And now my dad's spitting. And swearing again. Somewhere during that trip, and I don't know why they sold it, but maybe I do. The guy hung it there probably just for my dad. It was this hat with a single bird poop on the front, and it said, "damn seagull." My dad wore that every day that trip. And for two weeks, would tell whoever would listen how the seagulls were out to get them.

My mom hated that damned hat. But my dad sure loved making people laugh. So he wore it.