Be Nice Or Else

“When the summer started, I knew my mom and dad would be killing people but I never knew how delightful my vacation would be.” 

Sitting at the laundry mat, bored out of my gourd, I was texting my girlfriend back home but apparently, my internal monologue was turned off because I could tell that the elderly lady next to me, folding her bloomers, suddenly turned her head toward my direction. Oops.  

That sentence even sounds weird to me so I can only imagine what she was thinking when she heard those words emit from my vocal cords. Looking side-eyed, I tried to see if she was peeking at me. I didn’t dare look directly over at her because then she would know I was serious but I could tell that she was staring at me. I quickly started typing on my phone to feign like I was reading something. Did it work? Negative, she was still staring. How do I recover from this faux pas?  

“Look, you wanna be next? Do your laundry lady and pretend you never fucking saw me.” I said sternly with an evil eye that would make the devil brown his drawers. To be honest, I did not actually say this sentence aloud but I was certainly thinking it. Hey, at least I learned to keep my thoughts inside my cranium where they belong. Dad would sure be mad if he knew I had fudged up again because well, I think you know what it would mean for this woman who did nothing wrong except to accidentally hear me rat out my parent’s profession. The only reason I am sitting here is to wash out the blood off my dad’s shirt and pants from the previous woman that “got in the way”. This last person bled more than hallway scene in The Shining. Do you remember that part of the movie or were you like everyone else and all you remember were the creepy ass twins? It was a tsunami of red blood cells flooding the hallway while Danny looked horrified, sitting in his plastic trike. Great flick. 

“I’m sorry, I was just reading this book on my phone and oh boy, is it a doozy!” I said as I turned toward the woman. She nodded and smiled. I think she bought my act as I did not notice her looking my way anymore. I made sure to get up and check the machine to act like I was just a teenager reading a book while waiting for my laundry to get done. I added in some “ughs”, it sure is taking a while” and “is it done yet?” to better complete the act. I was a better actor than Tom Hanks in Saving Private Ryan although I do prefer him in The Burbs and his other comedic roles.  

Even though my parents have a unique occupation, they really are quite normal. We eat dinner together on the weekends, but not during the week because I have track practice. We play family board games together like Monopoly and Cribbage. Sometimes we pick strawberries at the local U-Pick and we even ride bikes together on the local trail through my hometown. My family is a lot of fun. Every family has its downsides though. Some parents drink too much in the backyard next to a fire pit, some play fantasy football together in a too competitive atmosphere and then some (but probably not many) are like my family. My family kills people but not all people. I mean, they aren’t animals.  

Chances are you, the reader, will never be killed by them so you can breathe a sigh of relief until the cancer comes and ravages your body. Wait, what did he just say?  

I am under the assumption that we will all get cancer from one thing or another. My local water has PFAS in it and yours probably does too. GMOs, the sun, alcohol, bad genes, or just bad luck. It seems like the odds of NOT getting cancer are lower than winning a claimer on a scratch-off lottery ticket. Life is tough sometimes so each day I’m not diagnosed with cancer, I consider myself fortunate. 

Back to the story. So it takes a lot to get on my parent’s list.

You know the guy that tailgates you on the highway for no reason? Or how about the woman who parks her cart in the middle of the aisle at the grocery store, effectively blocking the passages, both ways? Or how about the person who is watching Caddyshack 2 on the subway without using earbuds and has the volume to the max on their iPhone or Galaxy? At least make it a movie that scores higher than 4% on the Tomatometer. These are the types of people my family kills.  

It may sound petty to you that they kill people for such small reasons but think about the last time you were being tailgated. You probably said some choice words and maybe even extended a certain finger out the window at the perpetrator but you didn’t go so far as to eliminate them from this Earth. But you wanted to at the time. Your blood was pumping so quickly that you wished you were driving a tank so that you could turn the tank gun around and blast that car into pieces or slam on your brakes so they hit your car and fly through their windshield because you know they are too stupid to wear their seatbelts.   

Eliminating people like this pays well. Think about all the times that you are angered by others throughout any given day. Did your drive-thru order not come out correctly? How about the people walking in front of you going toward a store entrance, walking side by side, all four of them? So it’s impossible to pass them and you just have to slow your pace and wait for them to move their obese bodies out of the way. Did the person behind you in line at The Haunted Mansion in Disney World stand too close to you and kept on hitting your heel with their foot? Or how about your neighbor who decided to put a chicken coop in their backyard right up against your property line so that you hear clucking all hours of the day?

We all have those instances in life, don’t we?

Mom and Dad take care of those people, literally and figuratively. And they get paid really well. So well we get to go on great vacations, like we are right now. Where am I again?  

Oh yeah, Moab, Utah. Beautiful area if you ever come. Last year we went to Iceland, which did not have a lot of ice. Ironic.  

Murder for hire sounds so bad to the average person out there. I prefer to call my parents “problem solvers.” They make people’s lives happier and better, except for the people they kill. Like Dad always said, “you can’t make an omelet without cracking some eggs…or skulls.” 

Mom and Dad aren’t horrible people. They are actually very nice and no one would even think they do such a thing for their jobs. To be honest, they are actually retired. Both of them. Upon retirement, Mom and Dad both tried different hobbies like golf, mushroom foraging, and painting but Dad got bored and when Dad is bored, the family can feel it. What’s the saying, “happy wife, happy life?” For my family, the saying is “bored dad, the family is going to be miserable.” Not the catchiest saying in the world but you get the point.  

So Dad went to the bar one night and met “Todd.” Todd was a retired army veteran who was in the business of “security.” Well, they got to talking and Todd hooked up Dad with another person who did similar tasks but those tasks usually involved higher-level targets. Dad got really interested and loved the spy-like aspect of the job but did not want to deal with people who might be better than him and possibly end up dead himself. So he and Mom talked about it and after a lot (and I mean a LOT) of discussion, they settled on a compromise. They would work together and that way, neither would be bored and they could both use their different skills to help each other out. It’s rather romantic.  

The team aspect for Mom and Dad is perfect. Mom is a softer-spoken woman who really connects with people. She’s a people person. She loves to talk to others in a way that makes people want to give up secrets about others. She sifts through the b.s. and really gets to know the target on a personal level so she gets to see who the person really is and is one part of the decision-making process.  

Dad is a former librarian so he loves to find out details, without dealing with people. He’s more of an INFJ personality so he is committed to making the world a better place.  He’s great at “surfing the Internet”, going to the library to search for microfiche articles or wherever he has to go in order to get the dirt on people, without having to deal with people. I got him a shirt for Father’s Day, it read I Hate Mornings, I Hate People, I Hate Morning People, so something like that. Together, Mom and Sad are a great pair.

I know what you’re thinking, “do those small mistakes made by people mean they should die?” I have tailgated before so do I deserve to see my Pops show up and put a a 9mm slug in my done? No way. Not for one paltry mistake.

But what about a lifetime of mistakes? This is where my parents earn their money.

They only “take jobs” when they know they are doing the world a good deed. The amount of research that must be accumulated before the job is viable would put a doctoral thesis to shame. The people that my parents take care of have a history of poor choices that make others' lives miserable. You know the guy that walks his dog by your house and it seems like he makes sure the dog shits in YOUR yard and he doesn’t pick it up…ever? Or how about the guy at work who pours his half cup of cold coffee back into the communal coffee pot and then pours another one so that he can have a warm cup? Gross but I have heard about this and many more instances of just poor, human behavior. Just watch YouTube and you’ll see a profusion of depravity.

And what about me? How do I know what they do? Well, I found out about this the way all kids find out about their parent’s secrets. I snooped. Instead of finding my father’s Playboy magazines or my mom’s old love letters from her high school boyfriend, I found their “research” on the family computer. They may be stealthy and sleek but apparently not smart enough to know that password-protected files can easily be hacked by a bored teenager in the summertime. So they fessed up and broke the news to me one day when they noticed the files were accessed at a time when neither of them was home. It was a tough conversation but after a lot of talking and months of professional counseling, I am finally getting a grasp on everything.  

Do you remember the old woman with the undies from the beginning of the story? Well, I think she just slipped something in my Monster. Why would she do that? Did I really just see her do this?  

“Do I know her?” I thought to myself. 

“She looks so familiar,” I said to myself. My mind went through its card catalog of old people I have come across and I could not help but wonder if we had met in the past. I work at the local grocery store so it’s very plausible that we have run across each other but even if we had, did she really just do something to my beverage and if so, why?

Oh shit, I just remembered where I know her from. When I was working last week, I was stocking shelves and this woman asked about getting more coconut milk and I lied to her by saying “we are all out and I don’t know when any will return.” This was an obvious lie and she knew it. There was a whole pack in the back but I was just too lazy to retrieve it for her. “Just come back in a couple days and we’ll have some for you… if you’re still alive” (I said the last part under my breath.) She might have heard.  

I quickly texted Dad and sent him a picture of her that I captured in a very sleek and discreet manner.

After a lengthy pause in which my mind was going faster than a Tesla Model 3 Performance, my father finally texted me back.  

“Son, she’s our competition. What the hell did you do to get on her list?”