Here we are... on the cusp of the first weekend of 2008. For those of you that don't know much about Oklahoma, this week pretty much sums it up. At one point I believe on Tuesday morning it was around 25° (there's that extended character thing again... thanks Rick) now tomorrow, four days later the forecast high is in the mid to upper 70's. It is yet to be seen what tomorrow will hold, but I imagine that it will be all that is expected and more. The weather here can truly change in a matter of minutes. I have seen a 50° temperature drop in less than two hours, on more than one occasion.

There are few thing in this world that will drop the temperature as fast as a collapsing thunderstorm. I have had the opportunity to witness one other. It is what happens to the temperature of a room when a mom finds a bra in the back seat of her car that is a few sizes larger than she would wear. Icicles, man..... I'm talking icicles in the middle of the summer.

Here is the setting:

There are three possible drivers of said wife's car. The wife herself (played by my mom), the husband (played by my dad) and the 18 year old son (played by yours truly).

I walked into the den and my parents were watching television and my mom got up and walked to the front closet and returned with a very large and very white bra. "Randy do you know anything about this?" I looked at the bra and I looked at my mom and I said "What are you talking about?"

"I found this in the back seat of my car and it's not mine and it's not your dad's so why don't you tell us who it belongs to and why it didn't make it's way back to where ever it lives."
I was dating a girl that it would probably have fit, but I knew for a fact that it wasn't hers because an 18 year old guy would remember those.... errrr that.

I didn't think to take the bullet. It never even occurred to me that if it wasn't mine... well not MINE as in mine personally... but if it didn't belong to my girlfriend and it didn't belong to my mom then that only left one source... Dad.

As I said, I spoke without any thought other than the thought that finally, after a lifetime of leaving no doubt who was the guilty party in some type of shenanigans, finally, finally, finally for once I wasn't guilty. And I basked in my innocence. Not only did I bask, I think I actually beamed. Before that day I had thought that "beaming" was just a figure of speech. I simply said, "Mom I swear to God that I don't know anything about that bra"

And mom said, "Randy Gene Warren, you know your not supposed to swear to God, now take it back right now before you go to hell."

My mom could spot a lie from 500 miles away (It's true, I'll get to that story someday.). And she could spot the truth even farther. But this time she didn't need to divine from afar, she just looked across the room, at the halo of innocence that surrounded my head.

That is when it happened. It is a really strange thing to witness. It has happened to me a few times and it always the most interesting thing to observe. In the span of one second after "bra" came out of my mouth and ended that sentence, three things happened at exactly the same time, a light bulb blinked on above each of our heads. Mom looked at dad and I looked at dad and dad looked... well, dad just looked ill.

I wish I had it recorded.

If it had not been so serious it would have been hilarious. Mom knew dad well enough to know that he wasn't involved yet she knew she could trust her on board lie detector. I think her brain vibrated for a minute or so..... because she knew for sure it wasn't hers. I just felt horrible. I should have thought fast enough to throw myself on the grenade. But I knew my dad well enough to know that he didn't have anything to do with it... but I also knew I wasn't involved.... at that point my brain vibrated in unison with mom's.

Now, poor dad just assumes he has had a stroke and doesn't remember doing something that he knows in his heart he wouldn't do.....

I am the first to break the silence, "There has to be an explanation. It's not mine but we all know it can't be dad's." I have a bad habit of making two sentence statements. One sentence statements are much more powerful and the second sentence always comes back to bite you on the....

So now I am in the less than enviable position of needing to apologize for saying my dad couldn't pick up hot chicks if he wanted to.... I think better of the apology idea and just keep my thoughts focused on the possible owner of the bra. I took the bra and said I would find the owner no matter how long it took.

With bra in hand I bounded across the front yard to my car and began the quest that all young men hope to be chosen for... find the braless girl with the really big.....

I actually began to think that I might have gotten lucky and just didn't remember it..... yeah that's going to happen.....

As it turned out a few days later the girlfriend of one of my friends asked if I had found her bra. She had removed it when we were on a double date. Something about it binding or something.....

So I went home and told mom that it belonged to Delana, Keith's girlfriend. And my mom said, "Keith? He's such a sweet boy, why can't you be more like Keith, you make sure she gets it back and tell her I washed out for her in Woolite."

He was always her favorite.