(If you know him, you know he just has random bits of stuff everywhere, from the rec room to the rafters of his FOUR garages, so this was not a far-fetched thought.)
He came to me later that day with the cloth in his hands. "What is this?"
"I don't know. I found it in the laundry and figured it was some sort of hunting snot rag or something. It's clean."
"Well it's not mine."
"OK."
"I mean, I had a red shirt that I think was made of this fabric, but where's the rest of it?"
"That's all that was there in the laundry, and I certainly did not cut up one of your shirts."
"Well that is weird."
"Yeah, well... OK." I had grown tired.
I woke up the next morning and opened my bedroom door, and there, rolled up on the floor was the red cloth. I rolled my eyes, and took it to my parents room and put it back on their bed. Nothing was said, but a couple nights later, I crawled into bed to find something under the covers at my feet. The red cloth. Oh, it was ON!!!
For the rest of my break, the red cloth was found in his pajamas that were tucked under his pillow, again under my covers at my feet, in his truck and I think even in the pocket of my jeans in a drawer. I went back to school after tucking it away somewhere I don't even remember. Nothing was said.
I went home for Easter break and back to school with no mention of red cloth. A couple weeks after I was back at school, I was taking pledges back to their dorms one morning after the big/little sis sleepover at the house. It was early. I pulled down the sun visor and into my lap fell the red cloth. I stared at it for half a second before letting loose a string of obscenities and curses that had the pledges even more afraid of me then they already were (Apparently I can be somewhat intimidating). I knew exactly when he had done it. Oh, I thought he was so nice checking my oil and my tires when I was home at Easter. HA!
Ever since then, my father and I have made a game out of "dropping" the red cloth on each other. I thought I had won when I cut it in half and embroidered a little scene on it. I think it was a Father's Day present. But that didn't stop it. The pieces just got smaller and easier to hide. Like the top of his Thermos or in a CD case.
Once I tied his Dick's Sporting Goods gift card to the Christmas tree with a length of it. I opened a box that I thought held jewelry one Christmas, only to find a small red flannel Christmas tree cut with pinking sheers.
I get a little piece in every birthday card. I stuck the heart-shaped piece I had (again, cut with his preferred pinking sheers) onto a printed out IOU for Willie Nelson's new CD that was being released after his birthday this year. Throughout it all, Jan and Jenny just roll their eyes at us.
But the best drop of all so far was mine two years ago. We are talking a Wile E. Coyote SUPER GENIUS drop. They came to visit me in Florida, and I had bought a box of his favorite Doe-Si-Doe Girl Scout cookies for him (those are the peanut butter sandwich ones, right?). I took my Exacto knife and carefully sliced through the glue holding the bottom of the box and slid out the two tubes of cookies, carefully tying a piece of red cloth around each before putting them back in the box and re-gluing it shut. The morning they left, I gave him the cookies to take to Myrtle Beach, knowing he wouldn't open them until they got there. I can only imagine the expression on his face when he opened the box, but I have been told it was quite funny.
In a little wooden box on my dresser, I keep my pieces of cloth. I have the pinking sheer Christmas tree:
A fish, or actually, it looks like the Binghamton Whaler mascot. If you look close, you can see that he drew on an eye, a fin and lines in the tail. He's clever, that one.:
A snowflake:
And some random bits:
I had another piece, but it is Father's Day, after all. HAPPY FATHER'S DAY, DICKIE!!! I LOVE YOU!!!
(The origins of the red cloth have never been known. At least no one has ever claimed responsibility for how it came to be in the laundry that day.)
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