A Fun Weekend Night

My father enters the kitchen, where I am unsuccessfully making a 65th attempt at Level 3 of a game on my computer that a five-year-old could doubtless defeat in 20 minutes. He opens the freezer and, as happens one out every three time someone does so, a solidly frozen item shoots out onto his feet.

“G*d f^&k her in the heart! (he refers to my mother)

She freezes f$%king bread. With springs under it. Like f&*king jack in the boxes.

Everything that costs four cents, she freezes.

Things that other people just toss, as far away as they can, from the house, she freezes!

I can’t f#$king stand it.”

Long pause.

"I hear all this s&*t about mommy all her life about how honest she is. I have never heard of anyone who lies more ... she says this architect comes over and says 'oh, she said all the things that I had thought of.' This is the woman who can only get a pile of dishcloths to the counter. She is befuddled by where they could go next."

Shorter pause. He opens the freezer again. More things fall out.

"G&d. How much of my f%*%^ing life is ruined, gone, irreparably lost because of the stuff she does."

Even shorter pause.

"Tomorrow, I'll explain to her the concept of cleaning the counter. Then next month, I will have her try it."

Alarming Fecundity

Am I the LAST WOMAN IN THE UNITED STATES who is not pregnant/possessed of children? Are they giving out fertilized eggs and babies now instead of fluoride and dental floss?!

Far from Godliness

Most people today use robots to clean their kitchens, I think. I mean, they have robots guarding the New York City water supply (who knew?!) so I can only assume. Or at the very least, a long-handled scrub brush.

My parents use a sponge. An old sponge. It is green. Is IS green. As in, it has been around long enough for me to give it, the one sponge, a definitive color.

Yesterday, as I was drinking coffee, out of the corner of my eye I saw the sponge rise on the feet of what could only be many bacteria and move several feet across the counter. I looked back at my coffee for the remainder of my kitchen sojourn.

Precocity

Last night was another setback for modernity at the Sodium Ranch. It required all four of us - my father, mother, nephew and me - to blow up my nephew's new exercise ball. Peabo kept staring at the plugged hole via which one blows up said ball. I showed him the pump and indicated that it was simply impossible to blow up the ball without removing the plug. He looked very suspicious so when he was not paying close attention, I pulled the plug. Oh wonder! The pump worked and the ball became, well, a ball.

On which my mother promptly pitched over backward.

Shortly thereafter, the EXTREME STRAIN of having TWO SPACE HEATERS on (our house is usually a cozy 29 degrees at best) blew the fuses in the entire upstairs. This was tremendously exciting for my nephew and me. We ran about doing important things like unplugging one heater and flipping the fuse.

Fuse repaired, Peabo irritated my nephew somehow and the latter screeched, "You take Viagra! VIAGRA TAKER! VIAGRA TAKER!"

Peabo: "You're f&(king sexually precocious!"

My nephew and I withdrew to bed. However, he then elected to draw me into a very serious conversation at 10 p.m. about the possibility that his mother was perceived as "white trash" and/or a "tramp." As this may have been the most delicately negotiated conversation of my legal career, I feel tempted to include it on my CV but am unsure how to go about this.

This morning, I woke to find Peabo wearing tiny undies and an Athenian football jersey. And plotting my political career.

There is an enormous (roughly four feet by four feet) package for Peabo here from Tennessee. He has just told me he is in a VERY BAD MOOD and it "might be best" if I avoided him. Hmm.

Excellent Developments

To combat the rapidly increasing revulsion I inspire in men, I have taken up engineering. My father and I fixed our printer. My father has the printer jammed into a desk unit roughly the size and complexity of Byzantium, but the printer spot gives one half an inch leeway all around. This was coupled with one millimeter's slack in the power cords connecting to the outlet and the computer. Not surprisingly, the printer came unplugged. My father hauled it out and held it while I plugged one cord back in. Alas, the tugging free caused the other to detach. Manhandling a three foot Maglite as my nephew crowed and called us s*&theads from the chair, my father bellowed that I must go beneath the desk unit and find "the f%*king only dangling plug." It would not dangle given the fact that dust buffalo and cords take up all the space behind the desk unit. "Tug gently on the cords," my father said. "But if you encounter any f*&ing resistance, STOP TUGGING."

I found the cord. What next? Why, my father wants to DANGLE A STRING down the back of the desk, which I am to tie to the errant cord. He will then somehow get the plug back up and replug it without detaching the other cord. Which means not moving the printer again. Which means we would need to hire a Lilliputian.

"Dad," said I. "What about using an EXTENSION cord. Then we can pull the printer out, attach both cords to its back then attach THEM to the extension cord, which will give us a blissful foot or so of give to reach the power outlet." My father stood stockstill at my genius. My nephew guffawed and insulted us both again. My father cursed at him and called him a dog. "You're the one down on all fours," my nephew pointed out. This was true, as he was searching for an extension cord (among other wrong finds was a telephone cord) and gave my father pause. No extension cord.

"You stay in that meditative position," my father said to us. I was seated like a broken Buddha, half beneath the desk. My nephew reclined in the massage chair. We waited. He returned. This time with an extension cord. My father pulled the printer out. My nephew hit him with a cane. Then ran. "You f&*ing dog as&^ole!!" he said. Among other things. By this time, I had plugged the cords in and strung them through the minute hole in the back of the desk and was curled in a 270 degree knot (no, that doesn't make sense but neither did my pose) twisted around to the outlet. My mother appeared, took this all in stride, and asked my father if he had called my nephew those things. We confirmed the facts, but added the caning. My mother left. Plug-in achieved. Nephew back in chair. Both father and nephew cursing each other openly.

The long-awaited document, 14 things to do with coffee filters (one includes eyebrows), appeared. My nephew guffawed and fell off the chair onto his knees.

"VICTORY!" I crowed.

I wish Brian would drop dead, my nephew said from the other room.

"Do you want a time out," my mother asked?

"That was a rhetorical comment."

Bad Developments

In my callow youth, some men used to like me. I took it for granted. I am aging now. I'm fairly sure I am developing middle-aged fuzzy hair - not romantic T.S. Eliot thin, tragic male hair that somehow evokes the loss of all things good. Just fuzzy. And not as long as it used to be. And colorless. Not dignified, dyeable gray. More like an unpleasant mouse, the sort even your cat might hide from you rather than present at the foot of your bed. Worse still, and only one of dozen unfortunate developments (to name only a few, the 12-minute mile, a horn beneath my right nostril, and the beginnings of a bovine shoulder hump), rather than egging me on to drink more vodka, people now look nervous when the very word is mentioned and hide said beverage from me.

Were these and other ailments not enough (and to get back to the original topic) suddenly the men who liked me for years - remembered facts about me I forgot! Thought my running away from their beds to sleep in cars charming! Obtained signed Will Ferrell photos for me unprovoked - I got around to liking them. And they? No, no they don't like me anymore. Not a one. I can't figure out if it's the hair or the vodka problem or ... ok, if they've seen the nose horn, I understand.

Fine, good. Die alone. Unfortunately, this phenomenon has now spread to my parents. Sailing around the country and the globe, popping in for birthdays and Christmas. Working diligently in my loathed profession. Ah, the happiness with which they greeted my returns home! The sadness of the partings!

And then I had to move back in. You've heard of the economic downturn. It turned. As a result, my mother is in the next room of what is indisputably her and not my house. She's owned this house since she was my age. I have been home for nearly two months. Without a job. Admittedly, I ALSO WANT TO KICK ME IN THE HEAD. But I really wasn't quite prepared for her to want to do so.

Random curse word.
Blarg.