Life with Mario.....
Mario is my father. He is the reason that I will, in all truthfulness, never really be a lazy, shiftless individual. He truly missed his calling in life as a drill sergeant. He had his own standards and opinions about work. Being a typical crusty Yankee, he espoused certain virtues; thriftiness and a work-ethic being the major ones.
Joanie and I were taught at a very young age that any job worth doing was worth doing well, whether you were doing brain surgery or digging a ditch. (Boy, Mario LOVED the ditch-digging example.) You did your chores, you did them well, or you did them AGAIN, and again, blablahblah till it was done right. So we learned in pretty short order that if we ever wanted to leave the house, just do it right the first time and get it over with. Slacking wasn't tolerated. If you tried to be lazy, he would pin you with his ultimate insult....you were ...lackadaisical (I think that was Mario's favorite word.) So, to this day, and I imagine for the rest of my life, I will try to do the best that I can in whatever I do...even cleaning the damn litterbox.....
Mario has always had a nasty temper. One time, a few of us siblings had gotten together and we were talking about Mario. We were regaling each other with tales of terror and one of us pipes up with, "Dad's home! And boy, is he mad...He's got an AXE!" Okay, I'm sure most of you are cringing...and it is in reality a cringe-inducing comment....But we all laughed so hard we almost pissed ourselves. I have in the past mentioned using gallows humor as a mechanism to cope...Well, There ya go!
Unfortunately, as Joanie and I are wont to say, "We all have a little Mario in us." And it's true. When we were living in Cumberland, a neighbor kid killed our chickens because Andrew had the gall to talk to his girlfriend on the bus. I can't even begin to describe the absolute blinding rage I felt. It was like there were fireworks going off in my head. (Well, before you read this, please keep in mind that I refer to myself as crazy on a pretty constant basis...here's proof:) I went to my closet to get my shotgun and grabbed some shells. I went into the yard and blew a whole bunch of holes in a building we were going to tear down. No harm done, nobody dead, and I felt a whole hellofalot better. There were wild fantasies involving me taking my shotgun to his house and threatening him with bodily harm if he trespassed again. But they were, indeed, just fantasies. Thank God for Rob. He handled it in a completely diplomatic manner while still getting the point across.
I will say that the Mario rage does come in handy on certain occaisions...like when a child comes home with a "less-than-stellar" report card, and by less-than-stellar, I mean in danger of failing a grade. And there isn't even an inkling of anything physical. It doesn't even have to involve great volume. Just getting the "Crazy Mario" look in your eyes is enough to instill fear...even in the heart of a teenager. It's great! Nothing like puttin the fear of God into a kid to get them going down the right path!
