Carpoolers“The Recital”
Original Air Date: February 19, 2008
Jeff L – TwoCents Staff Writer
Aubrey plays his daughter’s terrible piano practice CD in the car on the morning commute. The guys feign interest and Dougie goes so far as to say he’d love to see her play sometime. Laird freaks out and smacks Dougie when Aubrey suggest the whole gang go to his daughters recital on Sunday.
Continue reading...
Posts
Carpoolers
ReplyDelete“The Recital”
Original Air Date: February 19, 2008
Jeff L – TwoCents Staff Writer
Aubrey plays his daughter’s terrible piano practice CD in the car on the morning commute. The guys feign interest and Dougie goes so far as to say he’d love to see her play sometime. Laird freaks out and smacks Dougie when Aubrey suggest the whole gang go to his daughters recital on Sunday.
At the office, Laird straps Dougie into his dentist chair and threatens him with the drill if he continues to try and do non-Carpool things with the Carpoolers. Laird wants to maintain the intimacy of the family without any of the responsibility of a family that he’s worked so hard to create with the Carpoolers. Dougie is risking that by offering to attend the piano recital. Laird goes on to explain that it may just be a piano recital this time, but what is Dougie going to do when Gracen shows up on his door with rubber boots and a pizza and asks for help fixing his sewer or when Aubrey is laid up in the hospital and needs a kidney. It’s a slippery slope.
Gracen is training for the big charity fun run. He shows Leila his new sports watch with all the bells and whistles which is going to help him win the race – or at least beat Leila this time. Marmaduke offers to help his father by being his visualization coach for the big race.
In the car, Dougie fakes (badly) a phone call from home and Cindy just broke the news that their dear, dear friend Joe McSparklette passed away and the funeral is going to be Sunday – the same time as the piano recital. Aubrey claims to never have heard of the guy but Dougie broadens the scope of his lie to include Gracen and Laird hoping they’ll help him cover. They claim that Joe McSparklette was their barber who cut all their hair for years and years. Aubrey wants to know why the never mentioned him before and they claim that he was a racist. Aubrey is mad that the guys would rather go to a racist’s funeral than his daughter’s piano recital and Laird just snaps and unloads with the truth. Aubrey gets his daughter on the phone so they guys can tell her themselves that they won’t be attending. They can’t break the girl’s heart and they all agree to come.
The recital is more terrible than the terrible CD and Laird threatens to kill Dougie. Aubrey calls for an encore and the guys can’t escape in time before she starts playing anew.
The next day, Aubrey is listening to the recital CD in his car and giving out the CDs. He gives one to Cindy who tells Aubrey that Dougie loved the recital and suggests they do more stuff together. She invites the Carpoolers to their son’s first birthday party.
Marmaduke’s visualization coaching is working wonders on Gracen. The two never get any actual running or training done but they can visualize the hell out of winning the race and that’s good for Leila who’s beaten Gracen every time so far.
Laird has to reluctantly entertain all the kids at the birthday party and the next day he’s got Aubrey strapped to his dentist chair. He’s giving Aubrey a lesson on boundries. Laird threatens to pull out all Aubrey’s favorite teeth and Aubrey calls his bluff. He opens wide and Laird can’t do it. Aubrey tries to get Laird to admit that they are friends and that they should be there for each other all the time. Not just in the carpool.
Laird agrees, but he’s got some more tricks up his sleeve. He calls Aubrey to come over in the middle of the night to entertain an old woman while he takes out her granddaughter. Aubrey wants to know how long has has to keep the old lady company and Laird ask how long the piano recital went on and on and on.
Gracen finds out that Leila sent Marmaduke in to keep him from training properly for the race so he hides one of her running shoes keeping her from running the race altogether. Dougie calls Gracen for some emergency mediation.
There’s a bunch of arguing and Aubrey almost throws a punch at Laird before Gracen’s heart monitor on his new watch starts freaking out. They rush Gracen to the hospital and the guys are racing him down the hall on a gurney. Laird is demanding to stay with the patient since he’s a “type of doctor.” Aubrey slams into a glass door while they run and the next thing you know Aubrey and Gracen are being raced through the hospital on gurneys. Dougie trips and takes out a nurse wheeling an IV bottle but he pops up and yells that he’s ok, but he’s already way in the distance.
Marmaduke is trying to get his father to visualize “not dying” when the doctor comes in and gives them the EKG results. It was just a panic attack. His heart is fine. The guys want to know why if he wasn’t having a heart attack, his watch said he did. The doctor says they can ask his blackberry for a third opinion but according to actual medial science Gracen is fine. Dr. Laird concurs but the real doctor pegs him as a dentist just by giving him an up and down glance.
The guys all apologize for fighting and they admit that they are all actually friends. Leila shows up and asks Gracen if he was worried and he admits he was worried that he’d never see his family again. He said he loves them, prompting Marmaduke to tell his father to rest because he’s speaking gibberish and making everyone uncomfortable.
Back in the car, Gracen suggest they lay down a clear set of rules and guidelines so nobody crosses the line again and he never has to mediate another Carpoolers dispute. The suggestion turns into another fight after Laird suggest that anyone who breaks the rules has to listen to Aubrey’s daughter play the piano.