I may have mentioned, in passing, the R.A.'s slight interest in french fries. Okay. It's a bit more than a "slight interest." Let me put it this way, if they could find a screenwriter fluent in Yowlish, they would make an afterschool special about the R.A.'s fry addiction.
It had dissipated for a short time but now it's back full force plus eleven. When I come home after work the R.A. flies into the kitchen demanding, "Feh fies! Feh fies! I want feh fies!" Unfortunately I have the temerity to not have the demanded fries seeing as I've just walked in the door straight from work. I respond "No french fries." The R.A.'s response is more adamant and he now hollers, "I want feh fies!" I clarify with, "No french fries. French fries go bye-bye." The combination of no fries and my insolence sends the R.A. over the edge. This is unacceptable and thus I am the lucky recipient of the R.A.'s righteous wrath. He caterwauls a stream of alien obscenities, charges at me, stops abruptly and grabs my left hand. The R.A. proceeds to aggressively chin my left hand. He then steps back and assesses me as if saying, "Well, what about now?" I apologize and repeat that there are no french fries. We then repeat the whole procedure. Often two to three more times. Finally, at the actual conclusion of our ritual, the R.A. stops chinning my hand, shoves it aside and shoots me a look chock full of disgust. This is sort of our own quaint version of "Groundhog Day" in that we go through this pretty much every weeknight. He yowls furiously for fries and I never have them. One of us needs to change our approach to this situation. Seeing as he's so flexible my money is on the R.A.
A short time later, usually while I am frittering away my time partaking in frivolous activities like getting my daughter's dinner or washing dishes, the R.A. will re-appear lugging my pocketbook and huffing, "Feh fies." By now he has determined that since I had the audacity to arrive home sans fries I can haul my fat fanny out and pick them up, immediately if not sooner.
Surveying him and his borrowed accessory I say, "No." The R.A. pauses and then decides I am too dimwitted to understand what he wants. He then attempts to force my hand to grab the pocketbook's handle. This action can be additionally challenging if my hand is holding a cooking utensil or covered with soap suds. We engage in a bizarre hand wrestling match as the R.A. tries to foist the pocketbook on me and I vigorously rebuff him. All the while we are yelling at each other:
"I want feh fies!"
"No!"
"I want feh fies!"
"Feh fies go bye-bye!"
Finally, and at the end of his rope, the R.A. will spike the pocketbook at my feet or more often on my feet, yowl furiously and grabs my left hand. He then chins my hand with unrelenting fury. If I am fortunate enough to have been in the process of washing dishes my hands are sudsy and therefore too slippery for him to get in a good chinning.
The R.A. is nothing if not a master of strategy. Lately he has re-assessed the situation and determined that he has underestimated the level of my stupidity. He has decided the problem is actually that I am too dense to fully comprehend his wishes. For the past few nights, following our pocketbook wrangling, he has later appeared with my wallet. The R.A. tosses it at my feet and caterwauls slowly and clearly, "I want feh fies." He looks at me with an expression one usually reserves for a particularly slow circus animal Then for emphasis he will jump up and down while flicking his fingers in my face. This loosely translates into, "Get it now, dumb ass?"
Unfortunately, for all of us, I must refuse his request. My refusal elicits an explosion of alien curses. One does not have to be fluent to know that what has been yowled involves insults concerning my mother, my mother's mother and my mother's mother's mother. Of course while this is occurring my left hand is being fiercely chinned.
Typically, once we've gone through the pocketbook and wallet scenarios a maximum of three times the R.A. eventually accepts that the fries are not forthcoming and proceeds to our next favorite nightly activity - climbing the china cabinet. This past Thursday evening, however, the R.A. must have been jonesing pretty badly for those salty fried bits of goodness. I was sitting and attempting to eat my dinner when the R.A. appeared next to me, dragging my pocketbook. He must have been extremely desperate because he abandoned the french fry protocol. While I continued to try to eat we engaged in some rousing pocketbook wrestling. Finally I abandoned eating, wrangled the pocketbook from him and put it back where it belonged. After several minutes passed the R.A. returned and tossed my wallet onto my dinner plate and half consumed dinner while yowling, "I want feh fies!"
To his dismay I refused, removed the wallet from the plate and continued eating. The R.A. was furious. He grabbed my left hand and chinned it. Unluckily for me I eat with my left hand so I was forced to bumble through the rest of the meal using my right hand. It was not a pretty sight for various reasons. But what I have learned while on this job is to eat whenever you have the chance regardless of the circumstances. Dinner time at my house is a lot like what WWI soldiers went through in the trenches minus the caterwauling. We have hand to hand combat and everything. The Kitchen God knows some nights I wish the Red Baron would come and put me out of my misery.
Following dinner, while I was in the kitchen cleaning up, the R.A. thundered into the room, yowling and howling like a mad man. He had gotten a hold of a blue marker and colored his forehead and right side of his face. The R.A. descended upon my left hand and while chinning he cried, "Feh fies! I want feh fies!" It was like being attacked by a tiny yet insane Braveheart: "They can take my nuggets but they'll niverrrr take my french fries!"
I have a fear that as his addiction grows so will his desperation. I have visions of him hot wiring my car and knocking over a fast food restaurant:
"What can I say, Officer? It all happened so fast. One minute I heard this odd howling but nobody was there and the next minute there he was, leaping over the counter. He sort of looked like, I know this sounds weird, but like Braveheart in what looked like backwards footieless footie pajamas. I don't think he was from around here because he was screaming but nobody could understand what he was saying. My manager tried to give him the money but he threw it on the ground. Then he grabbed my manager's hand and well, sort of kept stabbing it with his chin. I think he broke his hand. Then he grabbed a bag of fries and jumped out the drive-thru window. It was horrible!"
I'm seriously considering calling the Betty Ford Center. I wonder if they have anyone on staff who speaks Yowlish.
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