I Ate the Cheese!

Tuesday night was my Dad’s Bowling Night at the Knights of Columbus on 12th Ave in downtown Altoona. After rolling, the team members would often retire to the club for drinks and card games.

Bowling was my Dad’s one recreational activity. He didn’t hunt or fish or play golf, but he really did enjoy  bowling. The K was his main social club and I can only imagine the outlet it provided for him from the mundane, working class, physically-demanding job that he performed his entire life.

In addition to the weekly Tuesday night out during Bowling Season, Dad would also frequent The K to tend bar, to sub for another team, or just to have a couple pops and play cards with the guys. Friday night was by far the predominant night out at The K. Of course, if the light was on and he was in the mood, then it didn’t have to be Bowling Night or Friday night.

Depending on how long the game or evening’s festivities ran, Dad would get back home fairly late for a work night. Dad’s shift at the railroad would vary, but he would usually be out of the house by between 5:30 or 6:00 AM. Very, very, infrequently, a half-day of work might be missed because the previous evening’s fun and games got a little too crazy or the arrival back home was a little too late.

This didn’t happen often though for two very good reasons:

1. If work was missed, then some bills probably weren’t going to be paid on time. My parents had excellent credit and incredible financial discipline and Dad’s work ethic was a huge part of that equation.
2. Nothing pissed my Mom off like Dad coming in late from a night out at The K. (Well actually, questioning some absurd Roman Catholic Church policy could get her pretty stoked as well. I did that, once only, regarding ex-cathedra, and was fortunate to live to be able to tell about it. But that is probably another blog post in and of itself.)

Given how good Dad’s track record was on bullet 1, bullet 2 always puzzled me. But that was a constant source of friction between them. My Mom had this sort-of passive aggressive behavior with Dad (and others). Sometimes, when she was upset with you, she would often just shut it down, not talk at all, and ignore you. Other times, she would focus on something tangential and get her shots in that way.

I remember one specific example where the latter behavior was on display. It was a non-descript Tuesday evening in the mid-70s. Like any other night, Mom always stayed up until the last of the family members was in. This was Bowling Night and Dad must have been having a pretty good time with the guys that evening and was rolling in pretty late.

Apparently, after the rest of us had gone to bed, Mom wanted to make a ham and cheese sandwich, but the cheese was all gone. (No doubt, the ham was Chipped Ham from Sheetz, a family favorite.) So now, in addition to her late arriving husband, she had another stimulus from which her wrath could be amped.

Poor Dad rolls in around 1:00 or 1:30 AM. I had been long asleep since this was a school night, so I don’t know if there was any interaction between the time Dad walked in the door and the time he arrived at his bedroom. Knowing Mom and Dad, I would bet dollars-to-donuts that neither one of them said a single word to each other.

My bedroom was adjacent to Mom and Dad’s. So the rest of this is a first-person narrative. Supposedly, plaster walls, like the ones we had in our house on 9th Street in Fairview, have better sound-deadening qualities than today’s Gypsum Wallboard (aka drywall) walls. But one could hear everything that went on in our house. So I awoke as Dad trudged up the steps, retired to his bedroom, and settled into bed.

The first volley was fired from Mom, fully aware that Dad was still awake and well within range:

Mom: “The one night that I want to make a sandwich and there isn’t a single piece of cheese left.”

In response, I could hear Dad tossing and turning in bed, sighing heavily, and muttering something like:

Dad: “Jesus Christ”.

The second volley from Mom was louder. It sounded like she was at the base of the steps:

Mom: “Is it too much to ask that I could have one piece of cheese for a sandwich. Who ate the cheese?”

Sufficiently baited, Cody N’s retort was immediate and direct:

Dad: “I ate the damn cheese!”

Classic. I chuckled to myself. For years after that, we would use that line and joke about it. Mom and Dad could joke about it as well and laugh along with us.