"Jesus Christ," my mom yells into the phone. "You all said that there was no need to come in, so I didn't come in. Now you want me to come in. By 9. By 9. Are you @#$#@$ serious? I haven't even showered."
I got her there by 9:30, and now she can see red again. "That's a red truck. I see a red truck." The cataract surgery apparently worked and all is well (because I got us Starbucks on the way home). And Butch wanted lunch and was convinced the gray bacon in the refrigerator was still good. I had to convince him it wasn't, and outpaced him by whipping up two roast-beef sandwiches and a ham one for mom.
"You're mother hates roast beef. She won't eat it." (I later learned she likes roast beef but my father overkilled it when he was still driving because it is the only thing he brought home for them to eat). I also packed the plates with fresh fruit I brought from Connecticut. Great lunch, followed by a long walk with the dog (followed by my father on his lawnmower - on his afternoon stroll waving to all the neighbors as if leading the Pageant of Bands). I ran into Karen Perra, was invited in for a beer, and we talked for a while creating a frenzy at home because I wasn't there when Mom woke up from her Days of Our Lives nap and she thought I was dead...or kidnapped...or ran away).
I was smart. I put chicken in the crockpot and it was rip-roaring in time for dinner.
That's when the commotion began. The new neighbors were planting a garden with a pair of scissors and some sort of knife. It was fine, until I let my father know. He then, of course, revved up his rota-tiller and went to help. This put mom in a foul mood because he was helping a neighbor. "God #$@# Bryan, That's what he does. He's always helping other people."
"It makes him happy, Mom. Just let it go." She huffed and puffed, steam coming out of ears.
But then he came in and offered every detail of what was going on with the neighbors' lives, what they ate for breakfast, the kind of shampoo they use, who bites their nails and who uses clippers....just the every day stuff people talk about. Mom's like, "Butch, How the @#$@ do you know all this about them?" He said, "I listened. They talked to me."
My dad can't hear anything, so mom says, "How they @#$# did you hear anything they said?" He pointed to his ears..."I put my ears in before I went outside."
His hearing aides.
"Of course you did," Mom fires back, and she was off. I tried to stay out of their argument, until Dad worked for a peace-offering and asked, "Sue. Can I at least get you a bowl of raspberry ice-cream?" I sat there, thinking, "Seriously, Dad. Raspberry? That's what you provide as a peace offering?"
Mom's been chocolate, nothing but chocolate, since the day she was born. And potato chips. Chocolate and potato chips.
Mom was cold-shouldered...not because she keeps the temperature in their home like a refrigerator (hence dad's turtle neck, gloves, and sweater in June. She was just mad. So I interjected. When dad and I went to the store earlier, I got gourmet peanut butter cookies and I know my mom. She likely had Perry's Peanut Butter ice cream in the refrigerator. "Mom, you want me to make you...."
And before I could finished with 'a bowl of peanut butter...", she whips out half a gourmet peanut butter cookie conveniently lying by her side and says, "Here. Use this."
That's when I started laughing. The predictability hit all my funny bones. They are as they are and as they have always been and always will be.
Beautiful.
No comments:
Post a Comment