I know mom must be feeling better, maybe it's that mega doses of morphine they put her on, because the snippy biting comments have begun. There was a day, I am sure, when mom vowed not to do this, and be just like her mother, and I am hoping that this family tradition of finding something wrong with everything around you can be stopped with me. I am wondering if maybe this isn't a good time for my parents to have a nice long extended visit with little sis. She would put a nasty commenter right in her place.
I am at that stage of life (we as young people never think we are headed towards because we are way too cool to ever be here) where a reliable hard working appliance gets me all excited. One of the appliances in my house that does it for me is my dishwasher. I can put food and grease covered plates in and they come out squeaky clean. It gets me hot every time. Maybe it because I grew up in a time that dishwashers weren't so great, or maybe it because we lived in an apartment building and whenever our dishwasher had a problem the building would give us one of the used ones that they had replaced from a vacated apartment and they never worked so great either, forcing us to wash our dishes sparkling clean and then run them through the washer for "sterilizing", as my mom used to say. But in any case, I love my current dishwasher, it suits me to a T.
In the mean time every time I come home I am astounded my the excessive use of drinkware that happens when my parents are around. At breakfast they have tea and juice. At dinner time they have a before dinner drink, a beverage with dinner and then tea after. That's three drinking vessels per person for one meal! As I am loading the washer last night my mother criticizes my dishwasher and remarks "You know what your dishwasher needs? Another shelf for glassware." And she said it as if she and dad didn't use 8 or more glasses per day each. She said it as if I owned a defective dishwasher. I felt like she was putting me in the position of having to defend my dishwasher! I had to swallow it and not tell them what glass pigs they are.
Then we were all out running errands (this is always so cozy and tender feeling, especially when Evan and Josh make a big whining deal about having to sit in the third row) and I promised Matt he could run into the music store and get a CD. Everyone else waited in the car. As Matt and I climbed back into the car, and Dad exhaled in my direction, I personally thought quietly and privately in my own head how truly vile my Dad's breath is these days. He smells a person who has rotted out his insides drinking all that whiskey every night before dinner. But my Mom cracked her window and not at all subtly motioned to me that she thought Matt smelled. Which he admittedly does these days, like a teenaged boy, no matter how much he showers. It wasn't anything arm pittish she detected, which I know because no one smells with more sensitivity than I do, it was boy musk. And I can't and he can't do anything about that. So I swallowed it again. But then later when Matt announced he was going up stairs for his shower, and I told him to do a good job, mom chimed right in with her own washing advice and I was very close to punching her in the mouth. But I swallowed it.
Also, on the topic of smell, when we entered the house through the mud room (which I admit is the biggest chaos messed disaster in the house) mom wrinkled her nose, declared that the room smelled and suggested I get rid of some of the shoes. I swallowed it again.
But I am psyching myself up, because today when she does it again (because I have a feeling she is on a serious roll here) I am going to call her "grandma" and I am going to do it with attitude even though I know Mom will say that her nit picking is somehow different (and therefore valid).
Ditto on getting excited about appliances. A new fridge and oven would just about send me over the moon right now.
Posted by: wordgirl | September 05, 2007 at 06:09 PM