We're an American Band

 Week Eight: We’re an American Band

Sweet, sweet Connie, doin’ her act.

She had the whole show and that’s a natural fact.

--Grand Funk Railroad, We’re an American Band, 

from the album We’re an American Band

Usually I hear a song and I relate it to something or someone somewhere in my memory. Recently I was witness to a young ringleader who almost immediately reminded of a song by Grand Funk Railroad, We’re an American Band. I first saw her at an outdoor restaurant in Puerto Rico. On that day I likened her behavior to an eight week old puppy who tears through life with frenetic energy until limitations are established. Actually I saw her twice that day, once at the restaurant and then again that same evening in the hotel. She had miraculously gained enough control to dance with the very same brother that had so effectively pushed her panic buttons hours earlier.

I’ll explain.

We were already seated when  a family of four approached the table closest to ours across the aisle, affording me a front row seat to the circus that was about to unleash. Mom and Dad were talking to each other, but Dad seemed never to take his eyes off his phone. The youngest, a girl, would eventually sit across from her slightly older brother who did not at all seem happy to be there. The girl climbed into her chair but quickly realized that it was not close enough to the table so she climbed down, pushed it closer to the table and climbed back in—three times. Once settled, she wasn’t settled at all. Her attention turned to a metal condiment basket, which held three tall bottles: mustard, ketchup, and mayonnaise. She removed them and started opening and closing the lids in succession while repositioning them in a make-shift  game of condiment leapfrog placing and replacing the bottles in and out of the basket.

Before long her attention turned to the rope that hung from the center post of the umbrella that supplied shade on this sunny day. The harder she pulled at the rope the more convinced I was that she, the umbrella and the table would soon tumble to  the ground together. The only thing that redirected her behavior was the waitress who arrived to take the family’s food order. Shortly afterward, Mom and brother left the table.

Dad, still occupied with his phone, eventually stood to look over the hedge behind the table where he apparently sought the attention of someone he knew. Using hand signals he tried to tell someone that the plan was to do something together at 4:30 p.m. Realizing that he wasn’t being understood, he used his phone to call the person to whom he had been gesturing. With his back to the girl, her imagination and unchecked behavior got the best of her. She stood up in her chair to get a closer look at how the rope was attached to the umbrella, when a better idea occurred to her. Still standing she looped the free end of the rope under the handle of the condiment basket. She pulled upward on the free end and the basket and its contents rose like a hot air balloon. She smiled as she raised and lowered the basket repeatedly in a triumphant display of ingenuity.

Dad eventually turned to take his seat. “Sit down,” was all he said to her as he continued talking on his phone. She did not. Instead, she continued raising and lowering the basket until she wrapped the free end tightly around the handle of the basket, which then hung a foot or so above the table. Again she smiled at her success.

As I watched I tried to predict what Dad would do or say when he finished his conversation. He would again insist that she sit down. Or, he would demand that she untie the basket and return it to the table. Perhaps he would do both, after all there are proper ways to behave in a restaurant (even if it’s outdoors; right?) He did none of those things. Instead he seemed to look at the hanging basket then at the girl. He then said, “That’s going to make a lot of noise when it falls.”

The basket was still hanging from the umbrella when Mom and big brother returned to the table. I saw them order food before they left the table, but despite that Mom handed the girl some sort of smoothie. Then, as though hanging baskets of condiments are quite routine, she calmly detached the rope and set the basket on the table without questioning how it got there. Meanwhile the girl must have really enjoyed the smoothie because she immediately said so. Apparently she enjoyed it so much that she offered a taste of it to her disinterested brother. He declined. Leaning across the table, over the condiments that scattered under her weight, she extended the drink and repeated her offer. Again he declined. Not satisfied that her generosity was rebuked the girl made the offer again, much louder.

Perhaps Mom had learned from experience that this sort of stand-off would escalate. She did the only sensible thing available to her. She directed the boy to take a taste. He did, and being more pleased than surprised he leaned back in his chair and continued to drink. Desperate to retrieve the very drink she insisted upon surrendering, the girl snaked across the table screaming at her brother for the safe return of her property.

Here’s where the story of the little girl and the hanging basket of ketchup ends. By the end of act two I could tell that she always has the whole show, but I could only wonder at the sense of accomplishment big brother must feel when he so easily winds her up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxNXFNCTr2I