Embarrassing Tales

December 31, 2006

Since we couldn't get the family together for Christmas, my mother organized a party over the weekend. Deborah and I took the bus on Friday night from Port Authority, which, because of the holidays, was even more than its usual ocean of whirligig flesh. After navigating the zig-zagging crowd for several minutes, I got a bad case of vertigo and had to sit down while Deborah bought the tickets. I put down my bag, took off my coat, and took a few deep breaths.

"Got 'em," said Deborah. "You okay?"

"Yeah. Let's find the stupid bus."

Easier said than done.

Following the signs to the proper terminal led us in circles. We made it, though, and joined the line. One of them, anyway. There were two lines for our bus, and two alpha males stood arguing about which line was the one true line. Judging from the relatively short lengths of the two lines, it was easy to see we'd get a seat regardless.

My father is something of a genealogy nut, and not long ago had his DNA tested through a genealogy website. They send you a kit, which includes a cotton swab and a test tube. You swab your cheek, place the swab in the tube, mail it to a lab, and they match your DNA against a database, sending you the results. I told him that Deborah was interested in the test because, as an adopted person, she's unsure of her background. Her adoptive mother told her that she was Austrian and Polish, but she also once said, "You're a bastard. You might be half black for all I know," so she's never really known what to believe. I asked my father to show me the website he used for the test. We went into his office, which was doubling as a spare bedroom, and looked up the web address. The computer crashed.

"This computer has been giving me trouble lately. I don't know what the problem is."

While we waited for the computer to restart and speculated on possible reasons for the crash, Deborah came into the room. "Did you ever hear the story about when your parents went to the Playboy Club?" she said. "Your mother just told me about it."

"Playboy Club? No. When? In the Sixties? The Seventies?"

I wasn't sure whether I wanted to hear the story, and judging from my father's reaction, I don't think he wanted to tell it.

"Aww. It's a cute story," said Deborah.

"I asked for the Family Room," my father said, which was, needless to say, a highly abridged version of the tale.

Once the computer was up, my father showed me the DNA website and explained the various options they offered. He printed the address for me, and then we rejoined the party.

My uncle was there. My father's brother. He has one lung and carries an oxygen tank over his shoulder with a tube fitted into his nostrils. He has shoulder-length hair and a long, wild, salt-and-pepper beard. He often refers to himself as Aqualung. He took the tubes out to eat, and had them out when I sat down next to Deborah at the kitchen table.

"I have a story for you," my uncle said. "This one gets filed under most embarrassing. Most embarrassing and most unlikely. Wait." He stopped himself to put on his apparatus. He wiped his nose, fit the tubes, and turned the dial on the oxygen tank. "I need oxygen for this one."

Once he was all set up, he proceeded to tell us about his time away at college in 1966. It was the holidays, but for one reason or another, he didn't go home. Since almost everyone else at his school did, he was there alone and decided to see a movie. "It was that classic movie with Raquel Welch, One Million Years B.C.. I got there late, and the theater was pitch black. It was a nice theater with a balcony, and I decided to sit in the balcony. I stepped slowly, following the dim red lights that ran along the foot of the aisle, but I couldn't see a damn thing. I picked a row, walked to the middle, and sat down in the chair, only to find it wasn't empty. I sat down right on this guy's lap. And I mean, I didn't gently lower myself into the seat; I plopped down with all my weight. I realized immediately what I'd done, apologized, and found another seat a few rows closer to the screen. I could feel the guy's gaze, all his annoyed energy breathing down on me from behind. Anyway, as my eyes finally began to adjust, I looked around and realized there wasn't anyone else in the entire theater. Imagine what this guy must've thought. He must've been watching me, thinking, 'I can't believe the theater is empty and this guy is going to sit in my row.' And then, as I got closer, 'Oh man, he's going to sit down right next to me !' But no, even worse, I sat right on him."

I'm sure it was embarrassing for my uncle — here it is, forty years later, and he's still telling the story — but it was less than I expected when he set it up as the "Most Embarrassing Moment."

"So tell me about my parent'’ visit to the Playboy Club," I whispered to Deborah, my appetite whetted for embarrassing tales.

"Oh yeah, well, I guess a friend of your father's had a membership at the club — your mother said that your brother was only a year or two old, so I guess it was the mid-sixties — and this guy invited your parents to dinner with him and his wife at the club. They had a reservation in an area of the club called The Living Room. When your parents showed up, your dad told the hostess they were meeting some friends in The Family Room."

I waited for the rest of the story.

"This was the Playboy Club," my father said. He'd overheard Deborah telling the story. "There was nothing family-oriented about the place at all. Certainly no 'Family Room.' It was embarrassing."

"Aww," Deborah said again. "The story is so cute." She elbowed me in the ribs. "I think you need to blog about it."

"Maybe," I said. "But when you hear that your parents have an embarrassing story about visiting the Playboy Club, you kind of expect something more—um—I don't know— embarrassing?"