"The Experiment" Part III

Friday had finally made its grand entrance into the Keebler home. Everyone conducted their early morning routines as usually, but with just a little less conversation at the breakfast table.  The girls were still very upset with their dad and the possible antics that he had planned for later that evening. They hoped that maybe his work day would render him too exhausted for games and trickery, which is what they felt this whole experiment of his was – games and trickery. But to Bill, no matter how the girls were feeling about his plan, this was something that until he ventured out and gathered this information, he would not be at peace with himself.  

The day turned out to be as smooth as a freshly paved road and five o’clock came with quickness for the Keebler family. Bill was the first one home and immediately retreated to the bedroom to begin the preparations for his undercover secret squirrel assignment that would be set in motion at 8:00pm that very night.

Lori and the girls arrived at home about an hour after Bill and were greeted at the door by the sounds of Bill belting out a tune, which he believed to be his best vocal accompaniment, to the music of Def Leopard. They all stood in the doorway both daze and confused and honestly were not surprised to see that the kitchen showed no signs of anything being started for dinner and their dog buttons sat ever so quietly with his plastic dog dish in his mouth.  It was then and only then did they all realize that Bill was indeed serious about his experiment and nothing was going to get in his way.

A look of panic came over Carmen’s face as she dropped her purse and began to run through the house like a crazed manic.

“Carmen! Slow Down! What is wrong with you?” said Nancy, with a chuckle to her voice. She looked at herself as the calm one in all the madness in the world.

“Don’t just stand there Nancy…Check every window in the house as quick as you can?” Carmen ordered as she moved around like the Tasmanian devil on a loony tunes cartoon.

Lori and Nancy just stood there in disbelief that on one floor was a daughter spacing out with no valid explanation, while the man of the house made it sound like he was hosting his very own rock concert in his steam shower time machine upstairs.  

“The only thing missing is the sound of a crowd cheering” said Lori out loud to herself when suddenly the sounds of thousands of people screaming and cheering filled the house as Bill was doing shout outs to thank the crowd for coming. “I should have known he was listening to the live concert version.”

“Mom…Don’t just stand there! Help me make sure all the windows are closed…our neighbors can hear dad singing!” Carmen screamed.

“Good Luck mom…I told you…you going to need it tonight.” Nancy smiled.

“I think you right little lady, come on let’s get this hungry dog fed and some dinner on the table.”

“Should we tell dad we are home?”

With a huge grin, Lori replied, “Nope, but you could be a good girl and stand outside in the hallway and record his performances on your cell phone so that we have a great laugh when family flies in for the holidays.”

“YOU GOT IT!” exclaimed Nancy as she ran past Carmen who still believed that there had to be a window open somewhere and that she’d be the joke of the community for weeks on end if she couldn’t contain the excessive noise her dad was making.

It was the smell of perfectly seasoned hamburgers and onions grilling on the stove that was the alarm that triggered Bills brain with the realization that his family was home.

“Oh Crap.” He thought as he turned the shower off. “How long have they been home?”

“Bill, Girls, dinner is ready!” said Lori as her voice carried through their home.

“Long enough,” he said to himself as he wiped the condensation off the mirror to check out day two of his new hair color.

***

Lori and the girls were already at the table eating when Bill finally made his appearance to join them for dinner.

“Hey dad, how was your day?” Said Nancy followed by a devilish smirk.

“It was good.”

“Heard any great bands lately?” Carmen asked rather sarcastically.

“Ok, so I was enjoying some time to myself, is it a crime to still like 80’s hair band music?”

“Only if the police are called in for excessive noise and disturbing the neighbors,” said Lori, as she looked down at her plate to hide that she wanted to laugh.

Nancy couldn’t resist and jumped on the - make fun of dad’s singing bandwagon. “Yeah dad, there were police helicopters and news media all over the place, they thought that an animal was caught in a trap or something.”

“Hey, I’ll have you girls known that I was in the swing choir in high school and we won second place in the music festival.”

“You had to win second place, there was only two schools that showed up, yours was one of them.” Interjected Carmen.

“Ok, girls, let’s stop with the jokes now. Your dad has been taking it like real trooper. Now let him eat his dinner before it gets cold.”

“How bout’ we stop if he stops this joke about going out to observe the working skills of today’s youth. I fear he’ll go to a place where my friends work and I’ll be picked on for the rest of my life!” Carmen cried out in one of her overly drama flairs.

“Carmen, I can’t say it enough…please get your application in and get into acting. Trust me when I say that you’ll be rich forever.” Replied Bill, before taking another bite of his cheese burger.

“Well while you three discuss who is doing what and who isn’t, meaning cleaning the table and putting the dishes away…I’m going upstairs to get my private eye outfit on, can’t go looking like somebody’s mom now can I.” Lori said in a witty tone of voice. “Oh and Bill when you’re ready to get our N.C.I.S. mission underway, let me know and we’ll be out the door in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”

With part of his hamburger still in the process of being chewed up in his mouth, Bill pushed it to the right side of his cheek with his tongue and exclaimed, “Baby I’m ready! Get your poop in a group and let ‘s get this party started!”

Turning a bit green Nancy found the ability to share her feelings on her dad’s poor table manners, “Poop? Party? I think I’m going to be sick.”

“Ok girls, you are in charge of the cleaning details and make sure that one of you take the dog out before poop really hits the fan.”

“Ewww Dad that is so gross.” Both girls replied together in their best annoyed voices.

As the clock struck 8pm, Lori was dressed, out the door and waiting for Bill. He was usually the first one in the car bitching that the women of the house were was always running late, especially Lori, and without fail he would always remark that she  of all people would even be late to her own funeral if he wasn’t there to always keep her ass moving. This time the shoe was on the other foot.

As she began to grow inpatient, she glanced down at her watch and noticed it was 8:09 and was startled when she looked up at saw Bill dressed in a long trench coat, mirrored sun glasses and carrying one of his huge and heavy looking old military olive drab green duty bags that he immediately threw into the trunk of the car before getting into the driver’s seat.

She couldn’t help but laugh at the sight of her husband. “Oh my god..Bill you look like a flasher.”

“It’s my undercover disguise…what do you think?”

“You can't wear that, your going to get us arrested in that get up.”

“You worry too much. Want to see what I don't have on under this coat, He said with a wink of an eye. "Just relax, the fun is just beginning…Ziva.”

Lori blushed, “Oh Tony, you always know the right things to say to a girl.”

“So what kind of sweet nothings to you have to say to me?”

“Well, Seriously I’ve always wanted to say this one line, but there was there has never been the right time or place until now, “ she paused then continued while trying to keep a straight face, “What is the bag bitch?”

He was in awe that his wife had not only wanted to know what was in his secret detective bag, but that she had called him a bitch.

“Come on, what’s in the bag?”

He grinned sheepishly and said, “The most important items any great detective would have while conducting and undercover investigation.”

“Yeah, like what?”

 “You know important things like a Camera, cell phones, batteries, a fiber one bar, peanut M&M’s, a soda and a bottle of water, tums, Tylenol and chap stick.”

All Lori could do at this point was to keep from laughing herself to death as she found this crazy plan rather comical. She was also very intrigued by this witty, imaginative side of her husband that she had never seen before. To her it was actually fun and made her feel youthful again.

“Strap in Ziva. Our first stop - the fast food locations in the mall.”

“Ok Tony, let’s roll.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRQAF3CLQ84

Due to my extra creative want to write this story, it has been lengthened and we all know what that means and can be described in three words - To be Continued…

"The Experiment" Part I

It was dinner around the table as usual, in home of Bill and Lori Keebler and their two daughters, Nancy 15, and her older sister Carmen, who had just turn 19. Bill and Lori always found it very interesting that every night like clockwork, their girls would get carried away with their timely banter, bickering and bitching on various topics that included - but were not limited to, who was more beautiful, who had more friends, who had more guy friends, and who made the most money - a topic that Nancy loved to rub in her sister’s face.

Nancy was always spearheading some plan or idea to generate money into what she liked to call her “Soon to be a million” account.  She held down many odd jobs that included, babysitting, dog walking, minor sewing and selling potted flowers that she would grow in a small area in the garage over the winter months, and would sell them to family, friends and neighbors during the spring planting season.  She clearly was the Donald Trump, of the family and if there was a nickel to be made, she’d be the first to figure out how, and then make it happen. 

Carmen on the other hand, was clearly one that was destine to be in the movies and there wasn’t a day that didn’t go by that she was either a part of, had been a part of, or was about to be a part of the latest Facebook school girl drama and end up on the twitter bus to hell. She never had a dime to her name, and when she did, she would find a way to get rid of it fast.

Bill always remarked that if it wasn’t for her acting skills, he honestly believed that she was never going to have a job, or at least one that lasted more than three days - which was usually the time span before the imaginary stress in her mind would have her believing that she was over qualified for the job and that people were just stupid.  Her replies to Bills remarks would always result in the same way night after night - roll of her eyes and a stern flip of her long auburn locks of curly hair over her shoulder she’d reply, “Whatever Dad!”

It was at this moment an idea had presented itself in Bills mind, but was he on the right path? You see, Bill and Lori were always so amazed at how their daughters, who have grown up in the same house hold, under the same daily routines with the same expectations, and having basically the same interests, viewed the importance of having a job like trying to merge motor oil with milk.  Where Nancy understood that being financially independent was an important part of life, Carmen honestly believed that things in life were owed to her, and that she could never understand why nobody could see that she was clearly manager material and would never lower herself to start at the bottom of any job.

Thus type of thinking, set the wheels in motion for Bill to try and figure out once and for all, was this mind set something he and Lori had created all these years, or was it just this generation, and with that “The Experiment” was born.

When the girls had excused themselves from the table and his wife went downstairs to do a load of laundry, his thought ravished brain began to morph his visions onto the blank pages of notebook paper he had taken out of Carmen’s book bag.  He continued to sit at the table intently drawing pages of charts and graphs all with columns with ample space for quality note taking. When his wife had returned to the dining room, she was amazed at the amount of work that had gone into his idea, but she feared asking what it was, like a mother being asked by a two year old, “Can you guess what this is?”  You know it’s a picture of something, but fear having to ask and putting their self-esteem at risk. She sat down and watched without question as he muttered and stewed over his creation.

“I’ve done it!” he shouted out loud with sheer excitement.

“Done what Mr. Einstein?” Lori said with a smirk. She had not seen him this excited since the time when he receive playboy magazine instead of the TV. guide, because she had put the wrong sticker on the – win ten million dollars a year for life - Publishers Clearing House order form. To Bill, he was the only winner that year, and was happy it came in the form of sexy women in tantalizing poses across the glossy pages that came in black plastic to conceal his erotic pleasure that had been mailed to him by his wife. She’d never make that mistake again and was glad when the two year subscription was over.

He rubbed his hands together and said, like a man about to dive into an uncut chocolate cake and grinned a sheepish grin as if Lori had told him, he’d gotten his playboy subscription renewed, “This experiment is going to shed some light on our situation.”

“Situation?” at this point Lori didn’t know what to think. “Bill, are you feeling OK?”

“Couldn’t feel better,” he said as he organized his pages and began to explain. “What we are going to do is go to twenty businesses over the weekend, and watch twenty boys and twenty girls while they are working.”

“Bill, um, hon, I think that is illegal and called stalking.”

“I don’t mean this is a negative way. Just hear me out. I want to understand what is going on with the young adults of today. We as parents have done all we can to instill in our children the importance of being respectful, honest, and what it takes to make it in life. I just don’t understand why it is so hard for us to get Carmen to understand that she needs to get a job. She has been out of High School for almost a year and still thinks that everything in her life is just going to hand itself to her.”

“Ok, but how does this influence all this creativeness on our dining room table?”

“I want to do an experiment and grade the new generation of males and females in today’s work force. No names will be written down, just check marks in the following categories”.

1.     Customer Service

2.     Attention to detail

3.     Respect for their employer

4.     Respect for others

5.     Ability to speak clearly and effectively

 

“And you want to do this when? It sounds more like a College thesis to me.”

“The sooner the better.” He replied with a grin, “But starting Friday night would be fine too. This is going to be great; I always wanted to know what it was like to work undercover.”

“Bill, this isn’t an episode of Nash Bridges or Hawaii Five-O. We are two adults wanting to learn more about helping our daughter succeed in life.”

“Two adults? Are you saying you’re going to go out on this undercover mission with me?”

“I guess so.” she replied, “But only if I get to play Ziva from N.C.I.S.”

“Ok, then I'll be Tony.” He said with a huge grin and a twinkle to his eyes. “Let’s set our watches. Friday our undercover project will commence at 18:00 hours sharp.”

“Bill...we watch way to much crime story television." Lori said followed with laughter, "What are the girls going to say when they find out what we are about to do?"

 

To Be Continued….