The Row

A few years before my father retired, he decided that more exercise was in order.  He’d already tried a gym membership numerous times, he had already discovered a mummified squirrel in his golf club bag a few years before and the rusty 1980's stationary bike was moldering in a back corner of the garage.  My father felt that a rowing machine was the golden ticket to healthy living.  He placed it in the center of the family room and avidly used it for several weeks.  For the next few years, the rowing machine became a source of contention between my parents.  My father insisted he was still using it and my mother would point to the laundry she had placed on the machine’s seat months before.  Dad would eventually move the laundry and mom would show him layers of dust.

Mom put the rowing machine in the back of my truck for my garage sale.  No one wanted it even when I marked the sales tag down to “Free”.  My father finally noticed that it wasn't in the center of the living room anymore and demanded that I return the stolen property.  I returned it but placed it in the garage, much to my father’s chagrin.  He wanted it back in the house.  “Bring it inside then,” I told him curtly.  He never did and several years in his garage/woodworking shop added saw dust to its charm.

The day my mother had been waiting for over many years had finally arrived.  My father decided to do some spring cleaning in the garage with the help of the English Boy.  My father declared that the rowing machine was broken and it could be hauled to the dump.  My mother was so excited.  The English Boy pulled the rowing machine into the driveway and polished it with a bottle of Lemon Pledge and a dust rag.  He then gave it a test row and declared it to be in perfect working condition.  My father was unwilling to give up the shiny, nearly new again piece of equipment.  The English Boy, ever helpful, put the rowing machine on their newly landscaped front yard and rowed, quite expertly, for the entire neighborhood to see, the garage sale price tag still dangling from a string.  I believe my father finally won the row.