More On Becoming my Mother...

You know, I have my Momma staying with me this week. And, of course, my brother is still there. Last night after I got home from work at 11:30, we watched a family reunion DVD Mom had from her family. I got changed into my PJ's and got out the sweeper. "What are you doing?" she asked. "Sweeping" I say. "At 12:00?" "Yes, why?" "I could have swept if you wanted it swept today I didn't do anything". She turned to my brother and asked "Who does she remind you of?" I asked "Who?" and she says "Me".

At this point, I told my Mom, that I often curse her for half the things I do. You know when you live at home, and your MOM makes you do things you don't want to do, you say: "WHEN I GROW UP I'M NEVER DOING THIS!"

Like:

1) I fold my towels in three's. I cannot accept them folded any other way, because they simply don't stack nice in the cupboard. In half. In half again, then in three's. Mom made you do this, and do it right.

2) Re-folding towels that someone else folded, incorrectly. If they aren't neat, they get redone. Mom made me re-do my towels a lot.

3) Do the dishes as you go. I hated this dumb rule! Who wants to interrupt cooking with cleaning dishes? Who has time for that? Who wants to prolong enjoyment of a delicious meal, to wash dishes? Now, I can't stand someone in my kitchen, not cleaning as they go!

4) Wipe your crumbs off the counter. Now, I say to myself, "how fucking hard is it to clean some fucking crumbs off the counter w/o wiping them onto the damn floor, huh?"

5) Clean the cat hair off the furniture. Oh, I went rounds with my mom on this one. She even threw my cat outside once. My one stinking cat! I of course, layed in the yard and cried for hours with my kitty. Now, I have to do it, at the very least once a week.

6) Keep the house "red-up". (I dunno if 'red-up' is a patented phrase, or if other Moms use it...?) I'd think as a kid, big deal. It's just going to get messy again. Now, my internal 'can't deal with shit' button is pushed, if I spend 6 hours on my half a day off, cleaning when I work 2 jobs, and would love to lay around. Sorry Mom, I just didn't know!

7) Clean out the lint trap. I thought this was really dumb. Who cares if there is lint on the lint trap? When you get older, and OWN YOUR OWN WASHER AND DRYER. You realize, that this can affect it's ability to dry clothes. Burn out the heating element! I thought it was dumb of my mom to yell at me for that. But, I guess she was right. Same with having the washer go off balance. I sure as shit don't sit and listen to it now, I run to its rescue!!!!

This is but a small list of things I thought were stupid. I don't aspire to be Martha Stewart, But I swear I never thought I had an anal bone in my body. See why I don't want kids? My favorite Mom phrase? "Half-assed". I can see why she used it a lot. "get in there and rewash those dishes, you did it half-assed" You would even get the half-assed in note form, such as at the beginning of a list of things to do: "If you do it half-assed you will do it again" I don't think I ever threatened to do anything 'full-assed' but I bet if I did I'd probably have gotten slapped!

Reason 456,780,100 not to have kids. They will grow up and curse you for their own stupid habits in their blogs.