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Everybody Loves Kelsos
“Eric’s it’s not that big of a deal,” Donna said for what felt like the hundredth time to her husband who continued to pace up and down their kitchen.
“Okay, Donna not only is it that big of a deal,” he argued, open palms held out before him as he finally stopped his pacing to stand in front of her. “But because you don’t think it’s that big of a deal, that means I have to make it a very big deal for the both of us!”
“Eric, honey, we got here as soon as we could.”
Donna looked over her husband’s shoulder to see Kitty bursting into the kitchen from the back door, her eyes filled with worry and concern. Red followed close behind her at a much slower pace that couldn’t be fully blamed on the use of his new cane, he just didn’t seem as worried and more like his gruff grumpy self. Seeing her in laws walking into her kitchen more than surprised Donna; after all, it wasn’t as if they were right across the street from them, they lived a good few hours’ drive away. And she had just seen them a few hours ago back in Point Place now they were suddenly here in Chicago? There could only be one explanation.
“You called your parents?”
“Yes, I did,” confirmed Eric with a nod of his head. “I called them because I think they have a right to know and…I needed more people on my side about this. Which I know they will be, right Mom and Dad?”
The older couple remained standing at the back door, Kitty looking worried and Red annoyed—Donna had a feeling Eric hadn’t been very clear about what was going on.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I wouldn’t bet on it, son,” Red gruffly replied, and the way he leaned heavily on his cane made Donna briefly wonder who’d driven them over.
Kitty nervously wringed her hands together. “Eric, honey, you said it was an emergency.”
“This better not be one of those ‘you can’t find one of your dumbass Star Wars action figures anywhere’ emergencies again or you’re gonna find my foot in your ass,” Red threatened with his index finger pointed in Eric’s direction.
Donna lifted her hand to cover her mouth and the laughter that was trying to escape. She felt stupid for thinking those earlier thoughts before about her father-in-law, she should’ve known better, cane or no cane he was still the same Good ol’ Red Forman.
“No, Dad, I promise,” Eric said, his voice soft but serious. “This is something much more serious than that. I think you two should take a seat.”
Eric gestured at their rectangular kitchen table and the empty seats around it, however, neither Red nor Kitty made any movement towards them. Instead, they wordlessly looked over at Donna who sighed and rolled her eyes, irritated by it all, but by mostly how overly dramatic her husband was being.
Red must’ve picked up on her annoyance. “I think we’ll stand.”
“It’s about Leia,” added Eric, knowing he that the mention of their granddaughter was like going for his parents’ Achilles heel—especially for Red.
Kitty started to take a seat in the nearby kitchen chair and placed her hand on Red’s arm, directing him to do the same. Which of course he ended up doing.
Eric waited a moment after his parents were seated before he spoke again. He cleared his throat and let out a heavy sigh. Kitty’s worry seemed to be turning into fear as she squeezed the hand she still had on Red’s arm, possibly looking for strength or comfort. Even Red’s anger was starting to show traces of concern. Donna shook her head, Eric was so gonna get his ass kicked when he finally told them why he’d made them drive out here for over two hours..
“Mom, Dad,” he began, his tone serious and somber. “Leia, my daughter, your granddaughter. Is dating, a Kelso.”
He slammed his palms on the kitchen table as his head dropped, and his shoulders hunched over in remorse. Red and Kitty said nothing and didn’t seem to have much of a reaction to their son’s announcement. They simply sat there and looked at Eric and then back at each other.
By the time Eric had raised his head and pulled himself back into a normal standing position, Red and Kitty still hadn’t said anything verbally but appeared to be having a silent conversation between just the two of them through the looks they were sending the other.
“You see Donna, they’re so stunned they’re speechless,” he waved his hand in their quiet direction. “They’re literally not saying anything. When does that ever happen? This is that big of a deal!”
Donna rolled her eyes at Eric. She loved him but God, was he clueless! “They’re not saying anything because they already knew about it.”
Wide eyed, Eric swung his head back around to his parents. “You knew?!”
“Well, just, just a little,” tittered Kitty.
“Of course, we knew,” said Red without hesitation. “The kid spent the whole summer over at our house. We know everything that goes on under our roof.”
This time it was Eric and Donna who exchanged looks and had their own silent conversation of certain things they’d done under Red’s roof that he didn’t know about and how they wanted to keep it that way.
“Mom, you knew?” Eric asked, quickly changing the topic back on track. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Kitty looked quite torn as she starred back at the hurt look on her son’s face. “Oh honey, I…well…it’s just…Donna knew too!”
She tried to bounce the blame onto the next person by throwing out her pointer finger in Donna’s direction. Donna wasn’t bothered by the action, and it didn’t faze Eric either.
“He knows I knew,” Donna explained stepping in closer towards the center of the kitchen with the rest of the Formans. “I told him as soon as Leia and I got home, and Leia went to settle back in her room.”
“Well, you could’ve told him sooner,” Kitty curtly remarked. “We do have phones you know.”
Eric bobbed his head up and down. “She’s got a point.”
Donna’s shoulders dropped when she sighed. “Look, I just don’t see it as that big of a deal. Yes, Leia dated a Kelso but from what she told me it was barely dating, it was more like a summer fling and those things never last,” she tried once again to get Eric to see the logical side things. “And even if they did try to make it more serious, they would have to do the whole long distance thing which is hard enough for adults, let alone two kids—and one of those kids being a Kelso. There’s no way they’re even gonna try to make that work.”
“Oh yeah, that’s a good point,” nodded Eric, he then turned back to his parents looking for confirmation. “Solid plan, right guys?”
Kitty looked even more nervous than before, she wouldn’t even look at Eric and instead locked her eyes on her own husband who may have raised his eyebrows at the question but kept his gaze down at the tabletop. It didn’t boast well to see these two so unsure.
“Wait a minute,” Eric sounded less confident than moments before. “What are those looks for?”
When Kitty replied with an outburst of one of her loud nervous laughter’s, both Donna and Eric knew—this was not going to be good.
“Your mother convinced the Kelso kid to have a long-distance relationship with Leia,” Red was the one to inform.
“Mom!” Eric nearly screeched out. “What the hell?!”
“Well, I just…your father and I wanted to make sure Leia wants to come back to visit next summer,” Kitty tried to explain her reasoning, her fingers bustling around in front of her. “And maybe a few holidays sprinkled in between.”
Red shook his head and groaned, “Oh, no. Don’t go putting me into your schemes. This is all you.”
“Oh, you know you enjoyed having Leia and her friends there these past two months,” argued Kitty.
“I enjoyed having Leia there,” Red clarified. “I could’ve done without the next generation of dumbasses.”
“You gave Nate one of your shirts…” was the last clear comment that could be made out before Red and Kitty started bickering over the other.
Donna turned to Eric. “You really didn’t think through the whole calling your parents over bit, did you?”
“I was in panic mode!” he declared. “Our daughter is dating a Kelso, Donna! Despite everything we’ve done to keep that from happening. Keeping her away from all Kelsos was one of the top three reasons we moved to Chicago.”
“I know,” Donna nodded, understanding that frustration. “But she did spend the summer in Point Place and I guess dating a Kelso is just part of the Point Place experience for girls.”
Eric looked so horrified at the joke she’d made, it nearly made Donna laugh in response.
“What? I date one too,” she reminded in case he forgot. “Casey Kelso. You know this.”
“Doesn’t mean I like to be reminded about it!” he threw back out at her.
“Casey Kelso, I remember him,” Kitty said, suddenly disengaging from her argument with Red to join in on Eric and Donna’s conversation. “Oh, I think Jay is a lot more like his Uncle Casey than his father Michael.”
“Mom, not helping,” he replied, clearly wanting to drop all talk of Casey Kelso. “In fact, if anyone should be helping here it’s you, Dad. This is like your moment to shine. When Laurie was dating Kelso, he told us you locked him in the garage for over an hour and played mind games on him.”
Kitty gasped and turned to her husband. “Oh Red, you didn’t!”
“Damn right, I did,” he answered with a prideful smirk. “Scared the crap out him too.”
“Great, so what are you think for the Kelso Kid?” Eric asked as he joined his parents with a seat at the table. “How are you gonna terrorize Kelso Jr.?”
Red held out a halting palm in front of himself. “Now hold on there, son. I only did that because Laurie was my daughter.”
“And Leia is your granddaughter,” came Eric’s response. “It’s basically the same thing, only with the word ‘grand’ in it. Which if you ask me, means you should do something even grander. Like hey! How about both your feet up his ass? I know you’ve got the cane now, but I’ll help you get ‘em in there. We can even shove the cane in there too!”
Though he looked amused by the ideas, Red shook his head. “Sorry son, I’m retired. If you wanna mess with the Kelso kid, that’s on you. You’re the dad now.”
“Me? But I can’t do it. I’m not all big, mean, and scary like you are,” the deep scowl Red gave in response to hearing this made Eric swiftly tack on a small, “Daddy.”
Red wasn’t swayed. “Then I guess you’re just gonna have to give the Kelso kid a chance. Hell, you might be surprised, for being part Kelso, he’s a pretty decent kid.”
Eric blinked back at his father. “You just used the word decent and Kelso in the same sentence…” he turned to his mother, “Mom, I think Dad’s having a stroke.”
“Oh, hush, Eric,” Kitty scolded lightly. “You haven’t even met the boy.”
“I’ve met his father!” he argued
“Well, okay, but Jay is different from his father,” Kitty shared with both Eric and Donna. “He’s very sweet and responsible. He may look like a Kelso but he has a good heart and you can tell his mother raised him well.”
“Ok, yeah, Brooke is a nice girl and all but…”
Kitty shook her head. “Oh honey, no. Brooke isn’t Jay’s mother, Jackie is.”
Donna covered her face, anticipating another blown up reaction from her husband. She had been hoping to keep this information hidden at least a little while longer.
“Jackie?!” Eric shouted out loud in a high-pitched voice. “As in Burkhart? Jackie Burkhart? My one and only daughter is dating the spawn of Jackie Burkhart and Michael Kelso?!”
“I guess I shouldn’t have mentioned that, huh?” Kitty asked Donna who wordlessly shook her head.
Eric began pacing again. “We let Leia stay with you guys for two months and she comes back dating someone who’s half Kelso, half Jackie Burkhart! This is even worse than the time you guys kept her for two nights and brought her back home with like three bags of cotton candy and a massive sugar high.”
“That was the time we took her to the winter carnival,” Kitty reminded Red when she saw the frown on his forehead.
“Oh right,” he nodded along as a grin broke out onto his face. “Damn, that was fun.”
As the elder Forman couple shared a laugh at the memory, Eric groaned and dug his fingers into his hair as he went back to pacing while Donna went back to trying to figure out the best way to deal with not only her teenage daughter being in a long-distance relationship with a Kelso but the best way to deal with her husband’s feelings about the situation.
The End