Let's see what you've brought

I was the one who was keen on meeting my girlfriend's parents.  But I was surprised when entering the house I heard my future mother-in-law say "Let's see what you've brought", clearing addressing her remark to my girlfriend, and feeling very much like a What, rather than a Who.

It may have helped that I carried a soft sided leather satchel--grief case, as I called it--that resembled those supplied to federal public servants once upon a time.  It didn't help that my future outlaws couldn't pronounce my name.  And the fact that I am everybody's friend and feel that everybody can be my friend was like chicken soup, which, according to a wise Jewish mother, "couldn't help, but it couldn't hurt".

To be more specific, being everybody's friend was like cock-a-leekie, hearty and flavourful, and pleasantly thick!

Being thick, definitely mattered, but I had the fatal flaw of being both interpersonally thick and socially thin skinned, which is a relationship disaster.  But undaunted, I carried on a conversation with my future father-in-law about the merits of the Beaver Lumber rumpus room built onto the back of his house, that now served as a den--there was a living room, with clear plastic covered backs and cushions that was a receiving room for when the parish priest visited, but was otherwise unused.

Again, it helped that Beaver Lumber was ubiquitous, even at the time.

We got on well, my outlaws and I.  I made banana cream pie with Alice and helped Pat remove the pristine gear box from an old Maytag or Kenmore washer.  Not only that, but I enjoyed the pie and commiserated with my father-in-law about the terrible fate of the shiny gearbox, given that the washer was only being replaced because the dryer was toast.

But honestly who couldn't love a pie with visible banana slices inside, or a perfectly serviceable clutch that was still capable of initiating rinse and spin?

No, the troubles, if there were any, had to do with the amount of spice I put into the ground beef for after Saturday mass hamburgers, or my sense of al dente where it came to pasta, or my lack of awareness of the tinned Dainty Rice version of Chinese flied lice!

And my daughter fit right in with her love of Riverside Rice Cereal and Team of Wheat.

And the outlaws never did ask my wife "Let's see what you've brought" when Emily Frances was born.  The only concern was whether there was a Saint Emily in the same way there was a Saint Francis!

It didn't matter because Bruno and Rosa christened her Emilia Francesca anyway, and in Italy everybody is a saint.