Free Roll with the Punches by Amy Gettinger

my folks are only sixty and my grandparents are dead. I don't know from old people." She slurped something into the phone.
    "Mom and Dad are not old." My voice rose. "My parents are not old ! What are you slurping?"
    "Soup."
    "You are so not. That's an ice cream slurp if I ever heard one."
    "I had a salad first, okay? And besides, this chocolate shake had been in the employee freezer too long. It was going to go bad. I had to eat it."
    "How long's too long?" It was noon. My stomach pleaded for food.
    "Five hours." Another phone slurp. "So—"
    "You bought a shake for breakfast?" I started hunting for fast food in the endless mall by the freeway.
    "Two-for-one coupon. So what are your options?"
    "(A) Come over there and slap you silly and steal your shake or (B) listen to you slurp it." I saw Burger King next to a furniture store. All red letters. No imagination.
    "No, about your parents.”
    "Hmm. Well, there’s (A) freezing Dad cryogenically, (B) zapping him into outer space along with a TV and the dog, or (C) parking him with a friend so I can work and make daily hospital visits. You game?" I got off the freeway, biting a fingernail.
    "Rhonda," she said. "I work."
    "It was a joke. If I don't laugh, I'll cry. Or hit someone.”
    "Okay, (D) put him at the Hilton.”
    "You know my father'd never waste his money on a fancy hotel."
    "Oh. I thought we were joking to relieve the ten—"
    "You don't do it right. Your timing sucks. And Mom may take months to recover. What do I do?" I wailed, pulling into the Burger King drive-through lane. I muted the phone and barked at the speaker, "A large fries and a chocolate shake.”
    Pause.
    "Harley!"
    "I don't know anything. My timing sucks."
    "Oh, crap. I'm sorry, but I'm about to explode here!"
    She sulked a few seconds, then said, "Can't the neighbors help?"
    I breathed to calm down. "Most of them work all day."
    "Even the mothers with little kids?"
    "They're scared of him.”
    "How about your condo? The guest room?"
    I envisioned dad comfy at my condo and savagely bit another fingernail. "(A) He'd rearrange my house while I'm at work and (B) With his bad hip, he can't climb the stairs to the bedrooms. (C) He doesn't fit on the couch. Plus (D) Bing would have to come too, and he'd be over the fence in a minute, despite his bad hips, and pollute the pure line of champion Dalmatians next door. So (E) my neighbor would kill me."
    "Then take three weeks off until your mom gets back home.”
    "Remember me taking June off? All my vacation time's gone." My voice rose again as I paid the pimply teenager and took my bag of junk food.
    "Fine. You figure it out, Miss Crabby."
    "Harley!" I pounded the steering wheel. "Help!"
    "Okay, then listen. You stay at your folks' house at night, commute to your job, and get someone to stay with him during the day." The voice of reason burped.
    "Say ' excuse me', Brunhilda. And who do I get for days?" I inhaled half the chocolate shake at the thought of moving back in with the folks. Hello, brain freeze.
    "I don't know. A college student? Hey, about your book …"
    "Look, I'm working on it! Copyright infringement is a mess to prove."
    "What if you change it some? Different characters, different story? Then sell it. I always said those characters should end up on the lam in Brazil or something, at each other's throats."
    "It's not Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid . Besides, why should I change it? I wrote it, and it's already selling big. My book is selling huge. Isn't that a laugh? But how do I, silly little David, fight a big, nasty publishing Goliath for rights to my own work with Dad hanging around my neck? Agghh.”
    I got cut off by a Hummer as I merged back on the freeway.
    "Looks like you have to, in order to get your good name back."
    I growled.
    "Come to the park tonight? Skate off the anger? You can pretend you're skating arm in arm at Venice Beach with James-of-the-Dimples, your long hair flying and your tan perfect.”
    "I wish, but I'm