Lots of cloud

     [The further adventures of the Bauer family of Trabuco Canyon, including my parents, my sister (Annie) and I—who live nearby—and sometimes my younger bro (Ron) and his family.]

"It's alive!"

     On Sunday, Ron & Susan and the kids came by to help celebrate Father’s Day, and that went very well, though, as usual, it felt like a hurricane. (But I'm not complainin'!)
     After Ron and the gang blew out toward the ocean, I found what I took to be Susan’s cell phone on the bed in the extra bedroom. (The kids had been in there, playing, telling ghost stories, etc.) I drew attention to the thing as I left for home that night. “I think Susan left this here,” I said.
     Next day: Annie and I came by for lunch. There occurred three conversations. [Imagine now that I am Rod Serling.] Three Bauerian adventures in thought and language—in an area which we call the Bauer Zone.
     The main adventure, which centered on the word "it," was sandwiched between a before and an after adventure:

a priori

     Ma: “Roy called about his radio this morning.”
     “Roy?” I ask. “I'm Roy. You mean Ron, right?”
     “Oh yes, of course,” says Ma. “Ron, then, called about his radio.”
     “His radio?” I asked. “What radio?”
     “Yeah, the radio you found yesterday,” said Pa.
     I stared at Annie. She stared at me. I then said: “do you mean the cell phone I found?”
     “Yeah, the radio,” said Ma.
     Annie got up to find the dang thing.
     “Oh,” I said, “that’s not a radio. It's some kind of cell phone, I think.”
     Annie found it nearby and brought it to the table. She removed the gizmo in question from its small leather sleeve. Said she: “It’s a Blackberry.” She briefly explained what that is.
     “Right,” I said. “Its not a radio and it's not a cell phone. It’s an internet/email/phone gizmo, a precursor to smart phones, sort of. You know what smart phones are?”
     “The original cellphones,” asserts Pa, “were called radiophones.”
     Oh. Beyond anything else he was trying to do, my dad was signaling that we had better drop the subject. We—Annie and I—were causing disharmony, evidently, by picking at my mother and her trivial linguistic errors.
     OK.

a posteriori

"Who's alive?"

     Ma: “He sure has some cloud.” ["He" was some guy—doesn't matter who. I never found out.]
     Pa: “Yeah, lots of cloud.”
     Me: “What’s that you’re saying? ‘Cloud’?”
     “Yeah,” says Pa. “Juice.” He sure had a lot of juice. Or cloud.” He said this with his usual enthusiasm for having mastered a colloquial expression. (My folks are originally from Germany. My dad loves to pick up "new" expressions.)
     I offer: “I think you mean ‘clout.’ He had lots of clout.” (This reminded me of the "blood cloth" saga. Do your recall that one?)
     My dad commences staring in disbelief.
     “That’s what I said,” says Ma. “Cloud. He has lots of cloud.”
     Friends and acquaintances sometimes witness these episodes. At such times, my mother's obliviousness and cheerful disregarding positivity is invariably warmly embraced as Big Old World Charm. —Really Big.
     “No," said I. “It’s not ‘cloud.’ It’s ‘clout,’ with a ‘t.’”
     I pronounce the word very clearly, stressing the hard “t” sound: “ClouTTTT.”
     “Clout?”
     “Yep. That's what you mean to say. He has CLOUT.” (I worry that my folks are running around saying "cloud" when they mean "clout." But I really shouldn't. One more malapropism among dozens: who cares?)
     Says Ma: “Why do they spell it with a ‘t’?”
     “They don’t spell the word 'cloud' with a 't.' The word is clout; they spell that word with a 't.'”
     Ma and Pa look at each other. I do believe they’re giving each other the “there he goes again” look.
     It’s a look of resignation and dismissal. It is communicated quickly, efficiently. A shorthand.
     It is final, a death sentence.
     It means: Evidently, our son Roy is a real troublemaker. And, perversely, he insist on finding error where there is none.
     Why does our son do this? It's a painful thing to contemplate. Horrible, really.
     Tick, tick, tick, tick....
     Oh well, we'll just soldier on, as we always have. We will survive, somehow. (Sigh.)
     --They immediately drop the subject, having identified the nature of the problem and its solution.

OK, so here’s the main event. Get ready.

"He is."

     “Annie, maybe you can help us with the ad for the rental,” said mom.
     “Just put it on Craig’s List,” Annie proclaims.
     Guess so. I know what Craig's List is, but I've never actually gone there. Annie's into Craig's List. Yeah, whatever.
     My folks, however, don’t know about Craig’s List. They know it has something to do with computers and the internet (two things that they refuse to distinguish). Any mention of the internet is, to them, like mention of, say, a “College Professor” to, say, a Tea Partier. It's a red flag waved in front of a bull.
     Bewilderment. Plus hostility. That's what comes up. And a primitive impulse to grab a torch and commence marching up a hill to a castle to help secure an evil-doer's fiery death.
     “We have that ad. It’s been done and done and done,” said Ma.
     She was referring, I think, to all of the ads of all of the rentals in her life, going back many years. Yes, there’ve been many of those, I suppose.
     But here's the thing: none of those ads has much to do with this ad for this house.
     “Well, it doesn’t cost anything to write a specific ad for this rental,” said Annie.
     “It doesn’t need to be different,” said my mom.
     “Well, this isn’t complicated. Just a brief description of the house,” said Annie.
     “It’s pretty much the same thing,” said mom.
     “What is?” I ask.
     “You can write the ad and give it to me. I’ll take it from there,” said Annie.
     “It’s crazy,” said mom.
     “What is exactly? What do you meant by ‘it’? What, exactly, is crazy?”
     Uh-oh. That never works—every time I ask my mom to explain who or what she is referring to by some pronoun, she gets seriously defensive and hostile. Then my dad gets seriously defensive and hostile on her behalf. I could tell that she and my dad (and maybe my sister too) were getting confused about what they were talking about. There’s the needed ad. There's the decision where to run it. There’s the old ads for the same rental--created years ago, before anyone knew about Craig's List. There’s the effort and action of putting out the ad. Etc. I could sort it out for them, but I'd pay a price: I would be accused of "lecturing" them, of bullying them with all manner of clarity and logic. But there's only so much of this kind of endless confused discussion that I can listen to before I say, "Please stop!"
     My folks have a funny way with language. It is very typical of them to use "he," "she," or "it" without any clear idea what they are referring to. They do it all the time. Things are confused all the time.
     It drives me nuts.

"Who's he?"

     “There you go again,” mom said. “I’m being perfectly clear.”
     “Look, I just want to understand what you’re saying. If somebody hears another person say, ‘It’s on the table,’ it’s always fair to ask, ‘what do you mean by IT?’ WHAT is on the table?”
     Good Lord, was I asking for it. I had torn open a festering wound!
     “We don’t need a lecture,” says my dad.
     “You (I was facing my mom) just used a sentence with the word ‘it.’ I’m just asking you what you are referring to with that word. That's all.”
     “There he goes again,” says my dad. “Let’s be pleasant. It's a nice day. Let’s change the subject.”
     That pissed me off. “I’m not being unpleasant," I said. "I’m only asking what you (mom) are talking about.”
     I turned to Annie: “Isn’t it fair to ask what a person means by ‘it’ when they use the word ‘it’?”
     “Well, yes," she said. "And when Roy asked you (Ma) what you meant by ‘it,’ I had no idea what you meant either. And then, when Roy asked what you meant, you didn’t answer,” said Annie.
    "I just want to know what you are saying," I said. "That's all."
    "No," she said. "You do this," she said, accusingly.
     Yeah, I do.
     But mostly now, I don't. And that's OK too. Really, it is.
     I love these people anyway.
     Good grief.