The Geese Are Flying South

My father believed there were certain subjects that should never be discussed during meals. These included bodily functions, diseases, operations, open wounds, closed wounds that might reopen, and anything that had recently been removed from a human being.

Violating this rule brought swift punishment.

If I mentioned something revolting during dinner, I was sent to bed before finishing my meal. Dessert privileges were then suspended for a week.

This was serious. We frequently had pie.

As a result, I grew into an adult who could listen calmly to discussions of divorce, bankruptcy, murder, nuclear war and the complete collapse of civilization while eating mashed potatoes.

But if someone mentioned an infected toenail, I put down my fork.

My wife, Kate, grew up under a different system.

In her family, apparently, a meal was considered incomplete unless someone described a medical catastrophe in enough detail for the diners to perform the operation themselves.

Kate is a wonderful woman. I love her dearly. But she can introduce bleeding ulcers into a conversation with the casual grace of someone commenting on the weather.

We may be eating roast chicken with guests when she says:

“My uncle had diabetes.”

That sounds harmless.

It is not.

Before anyone can reach for the gravy, Kate explains that her uncle’s circulation became so poor that he used a jackknife to whittle dead tissue from his foot.

At this point I am no longer eating chicken. I am studying it.

“Did he sterilize the knife?” a guest may ask.

This only encourages her.

“Oh, no,” Kate says cheerfully. “It was the same knife he used to clean fish.”

There goes the gravy.

For some time, Kate seemed unaware of the effect these stories had on me. She thought I was simply losing my appetite.

Finally, I explained that if her conversation became too graphic, I would issue a warning.

The warning would be:

“The geese are flying south again.”

I would also point toward the window.

This was meant to be subtle. Our guests would assume I had spotted migrating wildlife. Kate would understand that she had just crossed the border between dinner conversation and an autopsy.

The system worked beautifully for several meals.

Kate would begin, “My cousin had a growth—”

I would point toward the window.

“The geese are flying south again.”

She would stop.

Our guests would look outside.

There were never any geese.

Eventually, however, Kate began ignoring the warning.

That was when I decided to train her through one-upmanship.

If she mentioned gallstones, I mentioned kidney stones.

If she described a bleeding ulcer, I introduced a perforated intestine.

If one of her relatives had lost a toe, one of mine had lost an entire leg and spent three days looking for it.

I invented an uncle named Claude who lived alone and carried a chamber pot into large crowds because he did not trust public lavatories.

Claude suffered from an earworm.

Not the musical kind. A real worm.

He refused to see a doctor, and during lunch one afternoon his ear fell into his soup. Being extremely nearsighted, he mistook it for a mushroom and swallowed it.

A moment later, realizing what he had done, he vomited across an Oriental carpet.

Whenever I tell this story, I point toward our carpet and say:

“You can still see the stains.”

Kate knows we have never owned an Uncle Claude.

Our guests do not.

The final contest occurred over rice pudding.

We had invited another couple to dinner. Everything went beautifully until dessert, when Kate mentioned a friend whose surgeon had left something inside her after an operation.

I pointed toward the window. “The geese are flying south again.”

Nobody looked. 

Kate continued. “Apparently, the forgotten object had remained inside the woman for several months and had begun to—”

I interrupted. “That reminds me of Uncle Claude.”

Kate stared at me.

I proceeded with the ear story, adding several new details about the worm, the soup and the digestive consequences of accidentally consuming part of one’s own head.

Kate retaliated with the diabetic uncle and the jackknife.

I introduced a cousin who had been pulled into a meat grinder.

Kate countered with gangrene.

I brought back the chamber pot.

By then, no one was eating the rice pudding.

Our guests exchanged a meaningful glance. The husband announced that he needed the powder room. His wife said she did too.

They left the table together.

A moment later, we heard the front door open.

Then we heard their car start.

They never returned for their coats.

Kate and I sat silently at the table, surrounded by four untouched bowls of rice pudding.

Finally, she looked at me. “I think we went too far.”

Outside the window, by an extraordinary coincidence, a flock of Canada geese flew overhead.

I pointed. “The geese are flying south again.”

Kate picked up her spoon. Then she asked if I wanted to hear what happened when her aunt had her hemorrhoids removed through her left ear. / TO BE CONTINUED, maybe.