papá

yes, we were all home for the thanksgiving holiday.

one of the things i remember most fondly actually makes me gag.

you see, for as long as we can remember our father has gagged while brushing his teeth. we always thought of it as a funny quirk of his, inexplicable as all the others. maybe he was brushing every surface in his oral cavity so vigorously that, in efforts to get clean, he set off his gag reflex; we didn't know.

one night, for some reason, camodidi and i decided we were going to get ready for bed in our parents' bathroom. our father gagged as he brushed his teeth. we giggled.

someone, maybe our mother, finally asked. "why do you make yourself gag like that?"

"i don't know," he replied. he paused, then (was that a half-smile we detected?) he added,

"feels good."

i cannot begin to explain to you the humor we found in this, a revelation of one of the many mysteries of the complex man that is our father. that he would bother to explain it to us was surprising in itself, and that the answer was so stupefyingly and fundamentally simple was just hilarious to us.

we laughed. hard.

so.

tonight, while i was brushing my teeth, i gagged. and then i laughed.

and now i have to clean up the toothpaste from everywhere.