Canned Jelly

My dad walks into the house from the grocery store and immediately sits in his chair and turns on the TV quietly with the closed captioning on. Since Mom’s gone into menopause, he's developed a hearing problem. That’s the best proof God exists, or maybe just a great example of how our species adapts to survive the elements.

“Hi, Kid.” He says and hugs me, before turning back to the TV. “Ya, hungry?”

Dad makes himself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, with the hand-canned, homemade grape jelly of his late mother, who made it in anticipation of her death. She made enough to last us into 2003.

Martha Stewart would have approved, but not Janice (“Just call me Jan.”) Hetherington “Your grandparents lived like homeless people, who we are not.” Mom says in disgust. “Now go put on a jacket. You must be starving. We have a coupon for Sizzler.”

Dad is watching reruns of 90210 and switches to Fox News during the commercials. He’d defend his late mothers jelly, but he loves my mom too much to argue and he is this close to falling into a state of exhausted R.E.M sleep on a Saturday after mowing the two yards, washing the white clothes and (possibly) trying to figure out how to commit the perfect murder.