Mr. Mark

Mr. Mark is what Titi who cut Mark's hair in Washington used to call him.  Mark loved her and would climb into her chair and talk her ear off while she cut his red curls.

I think it was the last time he was happy about getting a haircut.

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Adam finally pulled the trigger on a new lawn mower that he and Mark had been eyeing for a few years.  Adam is not what you would call an impulse shopper.  Our old lawn mower is about as old as Mark and duct taped together and threatens to pull your arm off when you try to start it.

So you could say maybe it was time for a new one.

Mark was thrilled and when we got home Friday night with the purchase, he and Adam immediately took it out of the box and started mowing.

Saturday morning, Adam was out early, mowing some more (we have had peak lawn growing conditions around here).  I asked Mark why he wasn't out mowing the lawn and he said incredulously, "Dad's mowing!?!"  The new mower is electric and very quiet.  Mark hightailed it outside to take over.

Meanwhile Braeden and FOB showed up, needing a ride to Salt Lake City.  They had concocted a sort of crazy trip to Denver to be at a friend's mission farewell.  (The friend is a girl, which according to my mom explains everything.)  Emma needed Loki for work so they were renting a car.  Sam's car couldn't limp its way to Salt Lake so they stopped here and needed a ride.  Mark knew one of us was going to go, but we ended up both going and leaving him mowing.  Later I tried to call him but (surprise surprise) he didn't answer his phone.  We texted him and ran an errand in Salt Lake and were gone about 3 hours.

Mark was in the basement when we got home and came up sort of bewildered because he hadn't realized we were gone.  Never checking his phone, he'd mown then gone downstairs to shower and just assumed I was upstairs the whole time.

This is what comes of introverts, uniting.  Separately.

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When I took down the bookworms from our summer reading program (that didn't exactly achieve its purpose--Mark read five books in one week and that's it for the entire summer, I had clearly read more than anyone else.  Mark asked me what my reward was and I said, "A new car!"  (I said it in the exciting Price is Right way.)

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The fact that we're car shopping may or may not have anything to do with Worm Joe, but since we were going to a car dealership, Mark decided to do our Saturday errands with us.  Usually it is just Adam and me because we can't even bribe Mark to come with us with the promise of buying him food.

With Mark aboard, gone was the freedom of saying what I wanted without some recrimination. At one point he said, "OK, Professor of Sweeping Statements...."

Before we went into the car wash, Mark said, "Remind me to tell you my business idea after this."  Mark's two great loves:  business ideas and cars.  Maybe he has three loves, because also food.  (Between every errand he wondered where/when we were going to get food.  The answer was we are eating at home until he wore us down and he got a sandwich at WinCo.)

After vacuuming and running the floor mats through the machine that is kind of fun when it comes down to it, we were again on the road and Mark said, "The danger of lightning can be avoided if you could be grounded at all times.  That's why I would like to introduce Thunderwear."

"How does it work?" I asked.

"Well," he said, "I just have the idea.  R&D is still working on the details.  Also, we are between banks right now, so if you'd like to invest, we'd welcome cash."

At the dealership, Mark knew more about the cars than the salesman (you have a website, right?).  The salesman wanted to talk about our monthly budget and whether or not we had a trade in and I wanted to talk about features.  For example:  heated steering wheel?  Shut up and take my money.  Our salesman went to get his "friend" who was the "Jeep expert" but he was really the higher pressure sales guy.

Here's what I realized though.  The older I get and the closer car salesmen get to Braeden's age, their pushy tactics aren't all that pushy (this is why we were so grateful to have Linn along when we bought our first few cars).  The salesman asked what it would take to get us in a car today and we both laughed a little and said, "This is our first day shopping."  His face fell and he probably walked into the dealership cursing all the old people that are impervious to his charms.

Mark was quiet and watchful at the dealership.  I think he was soaking up what he could learn about cars and business deals.

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Music fits in somewhere in the list of things about Mark.  I think if he hadn't been distracted by car shopping he would have made us a playlist for the errands.  He loves a good playlist.  He told us about his history test.  He'd received extra credit points because during the test, the teacher was playing music and Mark recognized one song as being from The Truman Show and one as being from Interstellar.  He's the kid who sang before he talked and knows more 80s music than I do but won't sing in front of people if you ask him to.

Mr. Mark, complicated and curmudgeonly and very, very funny.

Errand day is more fun with him.