Dad, brown bag, and the freezer(Radrook) My Father and the mysterious bag

The hen-pecked husband is traditionally perceived as a comical figure. Why? Well, for the same reason that a women threatening to punch a man in the face or actually doing so looks comical. The stronger man is seen as putting up with it because he fears fighting back lest he hurt the female. Or else because he doesn’t want the relationship to end.

But such henpecked husbands very often have their indirect ways of getting even. My father, despite his seemingly infinite patience, under incessant hen-pecking, was no exception.

This was brought to my attention in a very unforgettable way one dark evening when he suddenly appeared unusually early back from work carrying this small mysterious brown paper bag. Actually, it wasn't just the shopping bag that drew my attention, it was the very purposeful way that he headed past me to the kitchen with it, as if on some very important mission.

"What's in the bag?” I asked

"What's in the bag doesn't concern you," he responded cryptically in a stern voice.

"Yeah, but what's in it?”

"I said that what is, or is not in bag doesn't concern you, OK?"

“Can I see it?"

"No you can't see it, you just stay right there and I will tell you after your mother comes home. In the meantime “usted” you [The formal way of calling someone you in Spanish and used by parents as a word of authority.] cannot see it or go to the refrigerator to look at it! Is that understood?"

That rare use of “usted” and his deep seriousness kept me from asking any further questions lest I get in trouble. So I just sat wondering what was the big deal with what was in that bag. Meanwhile, I heard him energetically fiddling around with the refrigerator freezer. Moving things aside and seeming to struggle to fit something inside.

"Another thing," he said in a less somber tone, "It's a surprise for your mother. So when she comes home in a few minutes from work, I don't want you mentioning it. Let her find it for herself! Otherwise you will ruin the surprise. Esta bien? [Ok?]”

“OK!” I replied, glad to see that my dad was showing affection in that unusual special way.

I figured it was a very special gift. Finally, my father was getting romantic with my mom. I thought and hoped that his new attitude would reduce the constant bickering that was their norm. I began looking forward to my mom arriving and finding the special gift that my dad had bought her.

A few minutes later, as expected, my mother arrived from work.

“Adios!" she said in surprise, "What are you doing home so early from work today, Hipolito? Aren’t you supposed to get off at five?”

“Oh, they let me off early today. Things were slow,” he responded calmly as he kept watching TV.

He then told her that there were some beers in the freezer.

“Oh si? [Oh yeah?]Well, with the thirst that I have? Mira! I am going to drink about two!”

'Weird way of giving a gift' I thought. Beer? Not too romantic. Why all the secrecy then? Flowers I could understand, of course.'

Well, she disappeared into the kitchen, I heard her open the refrigerator door, and then the freezer door. That’s when she emitted this blood-curdling scream followed by weeping and staggering backwards.

As I sat there stunned, asking what had happened, she didn't respond. She just kept staggering away from the refrigerator and occasionally holding on the the kitchen table, and then finally leaning against the wall as if ready to faint. Made me momentarily feel like bolting out the apartment door in order to avoid whatever it was that might emerge from the freezer and come after me.

“Hay Dios mio! Hay Dios mio! [Oh my God! Oh my God]” she kept repeating while weeping.

“What’s wrong?” my father finally said, after having remained calmly sitting on the living-room sofa sipping a beer and watching TV during the whole thing.

“How could you do such a thing? How could you?” she half-said, half- sobbed.

“Do what thing?” he asked in an innocent tone of voice after taking another swig of beer.

“You know very well what you just did. How cruel can you be? How very cruel! I almost had a heart attack? Dios mio!”

“Hay virgin! [His favorite exclamation] Why would you have a heart attack? That’s where it belongs, isn't it? In the freezer. Where else am I supposed to put it? So I placed it in the freezer.”

“Yes, but you didn’t have to set it up in that way, did you Hipolito? Did you? Of course you didn’t. You did it to get to me. That’s why you did it, didn’t you?”

“I placed it in the freezer because it belongs in the freezer!” he responded calmly.

“But you could have told me! You could have warned me!”

“What is it mom?” I asked with my accelerated heart in the pit of my stomach due to the mysterious way in which both of them were saying the word "it". Please note that both of them were fond of recounting experiences that they had had with the supernatural and already had my nerves on edge.

“What is it? What is it? Go see for yourself what he just did! Did you know that he had placed that disgusting thing in there and didn’t tell me? Eh? Did you?”

“I thought it was a gift.”

“A gift? Go see for yourself if that thing looks like a gift!”

After her hair-raising reaction, I wasn’t quite sure that I wanted to look into the freezer any longer. That, coupled with the mysterious way in which he had entered the apartment, and secretively gone about the whole affair, made my fear even worse?”

“Go ahead take a look. No es nada! [it 's nothing] It’s just that she gets spooked over the slightest thing!” my father told me after gulping down some more beer.

“Slightest thing? Go see for yourself and tell me if that isn’t something to make your hair stand on edge,” my mother told me.

Having just recently returned from another gruesome experience at my aunt’s house on the island, where my aunt seemed to suddenly morph from Christian into a full-fledged voodoo priestess, I wasn’t particularly feeling brave at that moment. But gradually, curiosity won out, and I forced myself to go take a look.

Cautiously opening the fridge door, took several deep breathes, opened the freezer door and suddenly came face to face with two large eyes staring at me. They were attached to a smooth, black bulbous body from which tentacles all splayed in all directions underneath. After uttering a high-pitched yelp, and backing up from the shock, I gradually realized that I had just simply encountered the carcass of an octopus propped up in the fridge to look intimidating, and realized that it was just one way that my father had found to strike back at all the incessant hen-pecking he had to endure.

“You too, eh? Didn’t you say you wanted to see what I had placed in the freezer? Well there it is!”

Of course this didn’t stop the incessant hen-pecking. But it was a very notable hiatus and made me wonder just exactly how many other imaginative ways my father was using and had been using in order to strike back while seemingly being the victim.

---