Funny Guy Friday… The favorite son returns...

     Funny Guy Friday is written each week by my husband, Mark. So I married a funny guy...
     As some of you may know, my brother Paul is a Lutheran minister. He and his family live in a beautiful town called Chelan, in the state of Washington. Chelan sports the third deepest lake in the United States, and is about three hours from Seattle. Paul is the pastor of a church there, and, according to the stories we hear, he is kind of "a big deal" in his little town.
     His daughter has been attending St. Mary's College here in Maryland, so my brother has made it home a bit more frequently in the past four years. You may know that he is the fourth child in my original family of six kids (4 boys, 2 girls), and was always a little bit different than the rest of us.
     You may know all of these things, but there is one thing that I bet you did not know--- Paul is my mother's favorite child. We all know that he is her favorite and that every other child is a distant second. It is not that we care all that much. I mean, I wrote her Last Will and Testament, and when all is said and done, we all get the same amount. Nobody quite knows the reason why she loves Paul so much. I mean he is okay, but in my mind, he is nothing really special.    
     I mentioned he was different. For instance, when we were growing up, we played sports, and the sports kind of consumed us and occupied all our time. Paul also played sports but he did a bunch of other stuff, too. For instance: he worked a job during the basketball season; he took the time to have a friend teach him how to play the guitar; and he learned to speak fluent Spanish.
     I mean, those things are nice, but what does that get you later in life. Because of his lack of commitment to athletics, I doubt very seriously if Paul could even be a contributing factor on his current church's slow pitch softball team. Kind of embarrassing if you ask me, but perhaps my mother liked him better because he was so different and did do all that other weird stuff.
     But a better theory is that my mother is a practical woman and since Paul is a pastor, she feels her soul is safe. In fact, she was disappointed when I became a lawyer because I was her last chance at a mechanic. What does she need a lawyer for? She has no legal problems, but her car does break down from time to time.
     Anyway, her favoritism is really insignificant except for one huge benefit… her meatballs.
     My mother's meatballs are the stuff of legend.
     When my father passed away, I was the last of several speakers at his funeral. The first speaker was the Pastor of my parents' church. She told a story about my father's selflessness. She said that every time she had asked my father if he needed any special prayers, despite his failing health, he would never ask for prayers for himself, but would always ask for prayers for my mother.
     Yeah, yeah, yeah. Big deal. I had a similar story. I acknowledged that the Pastor's story was nice, but my story was a better example of his selflessness. When we were kids, my mom would make spaghetti and meatballs... the all day meatballs that sat in the sauce for hours and hours. The ones that had everyone sneaking into the kitchen with a piece of bread during breaks in the Redskin game and making a meatball sandwich hors d'oeuvre. Then at dinner, we would each get two or three meatballs that we would scarf down leaving us no meatballs and a whole meal to finish. When my dad saw that we had placed ourselves in this precarious predicament, he would offer up his own meatballs. We would ask, don't you want to eat them yourself? He would always say he was full and that he really did not want them. He was lying, of course, but knowing that he was lying did not stop us from taking him up on his offer.
     Prayers for my mom were nice, but we were talking about meatballs. (When you read that last sentence, you need to read it like you are Allan Iverson talking about practice.) 
     I am pretty sure that at the conclusion of my little talk, the pastor nodded in acknowledgement that my story was way better than hers. My guess is that she had previously had a taste of the magic meatballs and knew the magnitude of my father's sacrifice.
     Well, this is all very relevant today because Paul came home this week and Mom prepared him a special dinner. Cheryl and the kids and I were lucky enough to score an invite to Mom's for the welcome home (again) meal. When I walked into her house, I asked if we were having the usual roast and potatoes, knowing full well that we were having spaghetti and meatballs. How did I know?… because Paul was home.
     At the outset of the meal, Noah stated the obvious: that the meatballs were good. My mother slyly mentioned that Nick's Grocery Store had a sale on meatballs so she picked some up. I had not eaten anything yet, but I quickly pointed to my boy that Grandma was a big fat liar. These meatballs were not from Nick's, they were homemade. My mom asked how did I know. Because you would never serve Paul fake meatballs, you always kill the fatted meatball for the prodigal son. 
     My sister walked into the house at mid-meal. You know my sister, the one that built a home for my mother and father on her own property. The same sister that looks in on my mom on a regular basis. Yeah, that sister. Well she came in and could not even get a seat at the table. She was forced to sit at the bar, and had to eat food off of one of those small dessert plates, thus limiting the amount of meatballs that she might get. We need to save a few for lunch tomorrow… Paul will still be here, you know. 
     Yeah, we know.
     Hey Paul, how long will you be here? Here is your hat, what's your hurry?
     I am pretty sure that if a group of travelers came by the house and were looking to buy a slave, the five siblings would gladly sell our brother Paul, and then tell my Mom that he met an untimely demise. Joseph had his amazing technicolor dream coat that drove his brothers crazy, and Paul has his amazing melt in your mouth meatballs. 
     Now that I think about it, when my dad was sick, there was a period of time when Paul had to go back to Chelan to take care of some things before returning to Maryland to be with our parents again. During the time that he was gone, many families were kind enough to prepare meals or have restaurants deliver food. The food was a blessing for obvious reasons, one of which was that it freed my mother up from having to prepare meals. Paul returned from Chelan and lo and behold, my mother was in the kitchen cranking out a nice spaghetti and meatball dinner. She could not have had food prepared by others crossing the lips of her precious little boy.
     I could be wrong, but I am pretty sure that when my dad was alive, he loved me the best. Unfortunately, his special love came with no added benefits… he was a terrible cook. He had nothing to offer me.
     Oh, but my mom and her meatballs. I would do anything for her meatballs. For now, I am just like a dog looking for scraps… panting at the proverbial meatball door waiting for my brother to return home. Now that Paul's daughter is graduating, he won't be coming home as much. I suppose I should be content to take what I can get.
    Unless… Do you think it is too late for me to learn how to fix an engine?