It all started when Daddy came back from the VFW talking about the Y2K disaster

Daddy,
the Aromatherapy Candles
and the Y2K

It all started when Daddy came back from the VFW talking about the Y2K disaster. He said planes would be falling out of the sky, and the ATM machines would take all our money and the telephone would quit working and the world would go to hell in a handbasket.

Momma said she thought it would be OK. She had been watching TV and they said on Oprah that everything was gonna be OK. Whenever Daddy started getting crazy like this she always told us it was gonna be OK.

My sister Sue Ann was a bit worried about it, but she just lit some of her aromatherapy candles and laid down a while. I wasn’t sure what was gonna happen, but I had a bad feeling about this.

It must have been before Thanksgiving when Daddy started carrying food down to the tornado shelter. It was little more than a hole in the ground with a door in it. My sister and I used to play down there till she got spider-bit.

Daddy set off a bug bomb down there to get rid of the spiders, and started slipping cans of beanie-weenies and tunafish down there. He rinsed out old milk jugs and filled them up with water and stacked them in the corner. Momma kept missing things from the kitchen.

She was in a bad mood when she started the turkey on Thanksgiving because he had taken the big box of kitchen matches and she had to try to light the pilot light on the stove with my sister’s cigarette lighter. She didn’t like Sue Ann smoking those Virginia Slims menthols anyway, and it peeved her to have to ask for a light.

She said I was underfoot and sent me out to bother Daddy. He was out in the garage looking at the fuse box. I just sat on a paint can while he was looking at the cables coming from the outside into the fuse box.

"Jimmy," he said, "The world’s gonna go to hell and a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do to protect his family." I asked him what he had to do to protect us.

"I will protect us by having a place to ride out the storm, son. Get a pencil and paper and help me make a list." I went back inside the house and got a piece of notebook paper. Sue Ann was in her room and I could smell the aromatherapy candles. She had the curtains pulled and was laying on her bed.

"Are you all right, Sue Ann?" She raised up one corner of her sleep mask and looked at me, then sighed and sat up, the mask scooted up on her forehead. She lit a Virginia Slim.

"I’ll be OK in a little bit, Jimmy. I just lit a Tranquility candle and a new Inner Peace candle. Momma needs to be in here instead of in that kitchen. She’s all pissed about Daddy and taking it out on me about the cigarettes again. You want a cigarette, Jimmy?"

"No, Sue Ann. I’m helping Daddy make a list."

Sue Ann just walked over to the window and looked through the curtains, still smoking.

"Oh crap, there’s Granny and Uncle Jack and Aunt Missy. That’ll put Momma over the edge." She put out the Virginia Slim and pulled the mask back over her eyes, then walked back over to the bed with her hands out in front of her and laid back down.

I answered the door, getting my hair all messed up by Uncle Jack and a big sloppy kiss from Aunt Missy. Aunt Missy was Uncle Jack’s third wife, and had great big breasts and wore Jungle Gardenia perfume. Real strong perfume. Granny just kinda shoved me aside with her cane and walked into the kitchen. Uncle Jack sat on the couch and turned on the TV. "Missy, bring me a beer" I heard him call to the kitchen as I went out the back door to walk across the yard to the garage.

Daddy asked who drove up. When I told him he winced. "Your granny is a hard woman, Jimmy, and she puts your momma on edge. We better stay out here a while." I was relieved when he came over and sat down at the workbench. It always makes me nervous when he starts fiddling with the electrical wires.

"Son, we’re gonna need some stuff from Wal-Mart. You got a pencil?" I had forgot to get one when the doorbell rang. "Here’s one." He handed me a carpenter’s pencil, the kind with the really wide lead. "Put on the list we need flashlights. And batteries… batteries for everything that needs a battery. And fishing worms. And an extra reel of fishing line." I was struggling to write with the big funny-shaped pencil. "And a generator and gas cans. We’ll need to stop and get gas for the gas cans." Daddy went over to the old refrigerator he keeps in the garage and got a fresh beer. We listened to the country music station till Momma called us in for dinner.

Dinner was another story for another time. This story is about Daddy and the Y2K and the aromatherapy candles.

We went to Wal-Mart the week before Christmas. The Thanksgiving turkey leftovers were all gone and the shopping crowds were getting rambunctious. Momma was still cross from Granny and she stayed home. Sue Ann wanted to go to do her Christmas shopping. Daddy told her he wanted some wool socks for Christmas. She made a face and took her list. I told her I wanted a CD. We had Daddy’s list, which had grown a lot since we wrote it up in the garage that day.

We got flashlights and plastic gas cans and powdered milk. Daddy spent a long time looking at fishing lures. He told me there might not be any bait fish left after the Y2K. I wondered if there were no bait fish if there would be any eating fish, but I learned a long time ago to keep my mouth shut and just go to my room and write down my "smart mouth remarks," as Daddy had called them once. We got skeeter repellent, and some propane canisters for the camp stove. We got coffee and plastic cups and some fold-up army mess kits. We got some new sleeping bags for all four of us.

"Jack and Missy will probably be hunching in the corner, and your Granny can freeze her ass off outside for all I care." Daddy said almost under his breath.

We got some peanut butter and crackers in a collector tin. We got a radio with a wind-up handle and Daddy got everybody long underwear. He thought about it some and then went back and got everybody wool socks. We got devilled ham in pop-top cans and some Spam.

Sue Ann met us all bubbly the way she gets around Christmas. She had armfuls of bags with rolls of Christmas wrap sticking out of them. She was grinning like the cat that ate the canary as we went back out to the pickup. "Don’t you peek, Jimmy. I got presents in here." She said as she put out her Virginia Slim and ground it out with her foot. I told her I don’t ever peek. She knows that.

"Almost forgot," Daddy said on the way home. We went to the Pack-N-Save and he came back out with six cases of Old Milwaukee. Sue Ann’s eyes got big and she whispered "Momma’s gonna have a fit when she sees him bring that much in at one time."

When we got home, Sue Ann grabbed all her bags and scooted inside. Daddy sorted out the bags with the long underwear and the wool socks out to the side and told me to go wrap them up and put them under the tree. I nodded my head. "I’m putting this other stuff down in the shelter."

I took the bags inside and had to wait on Sue Ann to get through with all the wrapping stuff. I sat on the couch with Momma and watched Wheel of Fortune. She always seems amazed when I can see the word before all the letters are up there.

"Did y’all get your shopping all done?" she asked me. I told her Daddy did, but I had a few things to go. "There’s just nine shopping days to go, Jimmy. You better hurry up."

That Friday, Daddy got paid and gave me my allowance. I asked him if he was going to town, and he said he had to go back to Wal-Mart. I told him I needed to do some last-minute shopping. He said he had some last-minute shopping to do, too.

We went to the Wal-Mart, and it was like a cattle drive, but with no cowboys on horses directing the traffic. I looked at my list. I got Sue Ann some of that CK1 after-shower body spray perfume like she asked for. I got Momma some potholders with pictures of chickens on them. Momma likes chickens, and has chicken salt and pepper shakers, chicken canisters, and chicken dishtowels. I got Daddy the fluorescent orange fishing lure with the wiggly tail he had looked at the longest.

I lingered over the CDs looking at the N’Sync ones till Daddy told me he was ready to go. We drove around to the garden center door and he picked up a big box. It said "Generator" on the side. I asked him what we needed a generator for.

"Jimmy, the world’s gonna go to hell in two weeks. We gotta protect the family." I just looked out the window on the way home, looking at the Christmas lights. I drew a smiley face in the fog my breath made.

Christmas was pretty quiet, and everybody pretty much was happy with what they got. The long underwear and wool socks from Daddy was unusual, but his presents were unusual as a rule. He got another pair of wool socks from Sue Ann. She gave me an N’Sync CD like I wanted. She liked her CK1 perfume. Momma liked the chicken potholders and the Inner Peace aromatherapy candle Sue Ann got her. Momma got Daddy some rubber gloves and duct tape like he had asked her for. Granny gave us each a five-dollar bill like usual, and Uncle Jack and Aunt Missy had send us a big basket full of fruit.

The next Friday was New Year’s Eve, and Daddy got the day off work. I was out of school for the whole week. Sue Ann was all pissed off cause they had to stay at the Beauty School, fixing up women’s hair for the parties. She didn’t have anywhere to go, so I guess that’s why she was mad, too. Momma was making turkey salad sandwiches and Waldorf salad from all the fruit that Uncle Jack and Aunt Missy had given us.

They were coming by for the evening and we were going to all stay up late for the big event. Daddy was a little weird, and stayed in the garage most of the day. He wouldn’t let me come in and I stayed inside and helped Momma. She sent me to the Seven-Eleven for more mayonnaise once.

We all had supper together. Momma surprised us by not even fighting with Granny all evening. Daddy went back out to the garage. I went into the kitchen and Momma was burning the Inner Peace candle Sue Ann gave her. She was putting a Jack Daniels bottle back under the sink after getting coffee for Granny.

Sue Ann was pretty over her being pissed off, mainly because Aunt Missy had brought some wine coolers into the house and she was finishing her second one since supper. Momma seldom let her drink in the house, but seemed to be looking the other way tonight.

We watched the TV, seeing the New Year come in over Russia, and then in Paris, France. Sue Ann said she wanted to go to Paris, France. She wanted to ride in a convertible around the champ’s elly-sayze. Uncle Jack asked her what the champ’s elly-sayze was just as I went out to find Daddy.

Daddy was running some wires to the fuse box from the generator. This made me nervous. He was kinda excitable and there was a smell of beer in the garage, more than usual. "Son, the world’s gonna go to hell in a few hours, and we’re gonna be ready. The Y2K is gonna be a disaster of Biblical proportions, and we’re gonna be ready. I got all the money out of the ATM this afternoon and have it right here." He patted his toolbox.

"I got us a shelter prepared and I got shotgun shells to protect us from the roving mobs who weren’t smart enough to prepare. You helped with this, son, and you can tell your grandkids you helped with this."

I kept my smart mouth remarks to myself and sat on a paint can. He told me that he was hooking the generator up to the fuse box so that when the power went off he could just fire up the generator and run the lights in the house. "Can’t let Sue Ann run a hair dryer, and can’t have all the lights on at once, but we won’t be sitting in the dark."

I went back inside. Uncle Jack asked me to bring him a beer. Aunt Missy had been into the wine coolers and she was all giggly. I brought him a beer and noticed Granny was pretty jolly. Momma was drinking coffee like Granny’s and they were getting along fine. We watched as the New Year crept over New York, and came closer and closer.

Daddy came inside, and shook his head, mumbling about hell in a handbasket again. He sat with us watching the ball come down in Times Square. As the minute hand crept up again to the top of the clock and New Year came closer and closer to us, he went back out to the garage again.

At ten till midnight, Granny had fallen asleep, Momma was in the kitchen, and Sue Ann was getting pissed off again watching Aunt Missy kissing on Uncle Jack. I went back out to the garage and found Daddy filling up the tank on the generator. There were three other five-gallon plastic Johnny cans of gas sitting near the door. He had an old clock radio on his workbench that read 11:53.

"Jimmy," he said. "The neighborhood is about to go dark, and we’ll have light. Take my shotgun in the house and prop it by the front door. I may need to fight off a roving mob.

You’ll see the lights flicker and then I’ll fire this baby up and we’ll have lights on again. You go inside and try to keep them calm and don’t let them panic."

I picked up the shotgun and the box of shells next to it. Outside I took out the two shells in the gun and put them back in the box. I took the gun inside propped it by the door, but put the box of shells in the drawer of the hall table.

Sue Ann grabbed me and dragged me back to the couch. Momma came in to the living room from the kitchen wiping her hands on a towel and sat down just as the countdown began.

"Where’s your Daddy?" she asked. I told her he would be right in. 10-9-8. Uncle Jack and Aunt Missy came up for air and straightened up on the couch. Granny began to snore softly. 7-6-5.

Sue Ann squeezed my arm and we watched the crowds on TV start to sway back and forth. 4-3-2. The lights flickered and I looked out the window. I saw Daddy hightailing it out the garage door, and saw a curl of smoke right behind him. The lights went out in the house just before the count got to one. Daddy hit the front door and jerked it open just as an orange fireball came out of the garage and the Whoop! Followed a half second later, followed by several more Whoop!s.

The TV was off, the lights were off, and the room was dark. Beyond the spreading flames from the garage, I could see the neighbor’s Christmas lights still twinkling and the streetlight shining on the sidewalk. I heard a string of firecrackers in the distance and saw a bottle rocket arch against the sky, and then the fire trucks started to arrive.

They got the fire put out pretty quick. Granny slept through it and I’m not sure she even noticed when Uncle Jack and Aunt Missy got her led out to their car in front of the house.

Daddy told me that when he hooked up the generator it started smoking and started running backwards since there was still current in the lines. He guessed the generator blew up and ignited the gas cans. Momma wasn’t speaking to him by this time. She was sitting in the dark kitchen and had gotten the bottle of Jack Daniels out from under the sink. I couldn’t tell if she was drinking from a glass or straight out of the bottle.

We realized that we had forgotten the batteries. Six flashlights and no batteries. The electric company couldn’t come out to turn the lights back on till Monday the third.

"Good thing we got the camp stove and rations for the weekend, huh, son?" I told him I was glad we had the long underwear and wool socks. That made him feel better. The house was still dark, and he told me to find candles. All that I could find were Sue Ann’s aromatherapy candles. We lit the Extra Energy and Inner Peace in the kitchen for Momma. Daddy took the Fresh Beginning and Tranquility candles with him to the tornado shelter where Momma told him to go. He said he had to go find his toolbox, anyway.

Sue Ann wouldn’t let go of the Sexual Healing and Sexual Energy candles. I took the Clarity of Thought candle with me to my room.

That’s how we spent New Year’s Eve. Sue Ann still says burning all the candles at once all weekend is why we’re all screwed up. I don’t know.