Sep. 12th, 2012 11:04 pm
Today in familial absurdity
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muckefuckWhen I got home tonight, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
monshu said to me, "Let me propose a deception." Apparently, my mother had called to ask him about clothing sizes for me. Naturally, this was for a "surprise", but he didn't want to take the slightest risk of getting them wrong, so instead of going to the closet and checking them himself, he waited to ask me and then planned to have me sit outside and keep still while he called my mother back and relayed them to her.
Everything about this amused me. I'd spoken to Mom on my birthday (just shy of a month ago now) and she'd asked me back then for clothing sizes. Did she write them down someplace she could find them again? Did she go ahead and place the order while she still had them in mind? If she had, she wouldn't be my mother. No, it was entirely characteristic of her that she was calling on her cell from the passenger seat of a car on the outskirts of Dallas at the beginning of a trip to see her cousins with a clothing catalog spread out in her lap, hoping to take advantage of a free shipping deal that had already expired.
I started making light of the situation as I headed down the hallway undressing. Suddenly I heard a shift in the Old Man's tone which made me realise just how worn down he was by the day, how little he wanted to deal with this, and how not amused he was by my banter. I was feeling rather tired myself, so when I went downstairs to check my shirt sizes I stayed a bit to cuddle the cat. Dinner was a cold chicken salad and I felt no real urge or responsibility to return promptly.
Just as well; our dinner conversation was minimal but efficient. It was quiet for a bit, but soon enough Scooter's daughter and her tool of a boyfriend (whomonshu suggested we refer to as "Skag") emerged and it wasn't long after that before Scooter laid into them once again for spitting on the deck. This was, of course, the last thing the Old Man wanted to deal with, so he retired and I called Mom.
Was she more put out because her little "surprise" had been ruined or because of how soundly I mocked her for expecting otherwise? (I mean, really, how surprised am I ever going to be by a package from Lands End arriving six weeks after my birthday? "Oh, look, Mom finally got it together and bought me the stuff she told me she was going to.") Either way it was moot, because I soon had her laughing at the absurdity of the situation as well. We are far too familiar to take any of this shit seriously.
Afterwards, I called my dad, as had been my original plan for tonight anyway. Earlier he'd jumped into a discussion on my FB between me andbunj concering the current teachers' strike in Chicago. I figured my father, having been a public school teacher for over twenty years (off and on) would have some interesting things to say about it and he did. Despite the fact that this is hardly the first time we've chatted about his checkered career in education, I learned some things about it I never knew before, notably that he still considered his first teaching job (as a Papal Volunteer in Belize) his most successful--mainly because the administrators simply got out of his way and let him teach in the best way he knew how. "It was downhill after that."
monshu said to me, "Let me propose a deception." Apparently, my mother had called to ask him about clothing sizes for me. Naturally, this was for a "surprise", but he didn't want to take the slightest risk of getting them wrong, so instead of going to the closet and checking them himself, he waited to ask me and then planned to have me sit outside and keep still while he called my mother back and relayed them to her.Everything about this amused me. I'd spoken to Mom on my birthday (just shy of a month ago now) and she'd asked me back then for clothing sizes. Did she write them down someplace she could find them again? Did she go ahead and place the order while she still had them in mind? If she had, she wouldn't be my mother. No, it was entirely characteristic of her that she was calling on her cell from the passenger seat of a car on the outskirts of Dallas at the beginning of a trip to see her cousins with a clothing catalog spread out in her lap, hoping to take advantage of a free shipping deal that had already expired.
I started making light of the situation as I headed down the hallway undressing. Suddenly I heard a shift in the Old Man's tone which made me realise just how worn down he was by the day, how little he wanted to deal with this, and how not amused he was by my banter. I was feeling rather tired myself, so when I went downstairs to check my shirt sizes I stayed a bit to cuddle the cat. Dinner was a cold chicken salad and I felt no real urge or responsibility to return promptly.
Just as well; our dinner conversation was minimal but efficient. It was quiet for a bit, but soon enough Scooter's daughter and her tool of a boyfriend (who
monshu suggested we refer to as "Skag") emerged and it wasn't long after that before Scooter laid into them once again for spitting on the deck. This was, of course, the last thing the Old Man wanted to deal with, so he retired and I called Mom.Was she more put out because her little "surprise" had been ruined or because of how soundly I mocked her for expecting otherwise? (I mean, really, how surprised am I ever going to be by a package from Lands End arriving six weeks after my birthday? "Oh, look, Mom finally got it together and bought me the stuff she told me she was going to.") Either way it was moot, because I soon had her laughing at the absurdity of the situation as well. We are far too familiar to take any of this shit seriously.
Afterwards, I called my dad, as had been my original plan for tonight anyway. Earlier he'd jumped into a discussion on my FB between me and
bunj concering the current teachers' strike in Chicago. I figured my father, having been a public school teacher for over twenty years (off and on) would have some interesting things to say about it and he did. Despite the fact that this is hardly the first time we've chatted about his checkered career in education, I learned some things about it I never knew before, notably that he still considered his first teaching job (as a Papal Volunteer in Belize) his most successful--mainly because the administrators simply got out of his way and let him teach in the best way he knew how. "It was downhill after that."