Aunt Nette is like a busybody savant. She can tell the last time you called your mother, how you treat your children, and can rate your love life on a scale of one to ten just by listening to you order hash browns at the Waffle House.
“Scattered and smothered,” I told the waitress, slipping the menu into the metal holder behind the napkin dispenser.
Looking across the table, I’m tempted to apply the same order to Aunt Nette. She is scraping egg off the laminated menu with a polished nail on a finger laden with hand-me-down diamonds, and lecturing me on my child-raising abilities.
“You should call more often. I never hear important news until it’s too late.”
“You’re exaggerating.”
She flicked away a piece of petrified yolk. “I hear the baby is walking now.”
The baby is 20 years old. “Okay so maybe I’m slow with updates. Follow me on Twitter and you can read everything in sentences short enough to slap right on the gossip chain.”
“What those boys need is more parental involvement.” She dipped her paper napkin in her water glass and began to polish her fork.
“The last time I had parental involvement with these kids, I lost three lives."
"You should use caution in dealing with children."
"All I did was pick up a video game controller. Then I blew myself somewhere over the rainbow in a blinding blue flash."
The only reason my children aren’t listed as serial killers in police records country-wide is that there are still those officials who refuse to admit the impossibility of a zombie apocalypse.
"You do know they’ve been studying the best method for slaughtering the undead.”
“They were Boy Scouts. They want to be prepared.”
“They’re prepared for a swarm of mercenaries, an invasion by aliens, and a world-ending zombie attack. What they’re not ready for is an English test or a quiz on fundamental dinner etiquette.”
“You could probably learn some things from them. Remember when I stayed the weekend at your house? The boys and I found a new respect for each other.”
“Oh, really? And how are you a better person since that weekend?”
She sipped coffee from a stoneware cup leaving Pink Poodle lipstick on the rim, crossed her beige stockinged ankles under the table, and leaned forward with a prim smile to perform an airborne example on a pretend video game controller.
"I beast at Borderlands.”
Laugh
Showing posts with label Waffle House. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Waffle House. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Thirteen (A Reminiscence at Graduation Time)
Having babies is rather like bringing home a carton of eggs. You find a safe, temperature-controlled environment for them and you handle them carefully for the first couple of weeks, but after that they lose their freshness, begin to smell and you just wish you’d gone to the Waffle House and let somebody else worry with the details. At the very least you should have invested in Egg Beaters instead, and you have that sinking feeling that neither of you will age gracefully.
My niece and I both have children who are given to food fights, who exist on a diet of cold cereal and Oreos, who run screaming through the house naked at bathtime, and who wear their favorite shirt until the animal logo withers and dies of old age. Her son is three years old. Mine is thirteen. Here is a child who went to bed with Ozzy Nelson’s personality on the last day he was twelve and woke up the next morning as Ozzy Ozborne. Our lives went straight from Happy Days to Survivor: Hormone Breakout. Whoever first said that thirteen is an unlucky number must have had a new teenager in the hut.
It’s not that I’m unaccustomed to teenagers. I’m perilously close to exhausting all reasonable excuses why my oldest child shouldn’t be allowed to operate a moving vehicle. Before long the state will license him to drive a car, which will terminate my rights as a citizen by turning my pursuit of happiness into the impossible dream.
I’ve grown accustomed to walking alone like an escapee from Happy Valley Farms when we go to the mall. I know not to wear clothing designed to draw attention to myself, such as jeans that come all the way to my waist or blouses that are large enough to camouflage my behind. I’ve been trained not throw my hand up in a friendly greeting or act like I’m a blood relative if I happen to see my child at a football game, and I know not to say the word potty in public.
At least with my older son, I was given fair warning. With Mutant Human 2, the transition was like Dr. Jekyll and Martha Stewart, the jailhouse years. At school he took it personally if asked to participate in undesirable group activities, such as lunch. Teachers who expected him to complete homework assignments EVERY day, and who indulged in summer reading lists that didn’t involve Japanese animation were trolls. When subjected to standardized testing, he hyperventilated, experienced Suddenly Sullen disease, and threatened to move to Montana and indulge in steer wrestling.
I don’t know if it’s his perpetual smirk or the 360-degree eye roll when I speak that barbecues my potato chips. Perhaps it’s the nagging idea that he managed to restructure my nervous system into an alternate design made from rolls of bubble wrap. And he’s popping all the bubbles.
I’m comforted by the rumors that there are parents, alive in captivity, who survived the teenage years. Sure, a great many of them now have facial tics and are given to muttering to themselves and staring blankly into space for long periods of time, but they’re alive, hold responsible jobs, and can open their own mail. I am personally acquainted with parents who know not to wear spandex at the beach or brown socks with Birkenstocks, who can successfully record the message for the answering machine, and who can figure out by themselves how to pay at the pump when they get gas for the car, providing they have chosen the gas option instead of saving their pension for retirement.
They say if I make it through the next ten years, I’m home free. They also say that the worst part of having a teenager is the bizarre Hulk-like mood swings. Of course, I’ve heard that with hormone therapy and proper rest, I’ll get over it.
But I have to wonder if there’s money to be made in steer wrestling.
My niece and I both have children who are given to food fights, who exist on a diet of cold cereal and Oreos, who run screaming through the house naked at bathtime, and who wear their favorite shirt until the animal logo withers and dies of old age. Her son is three years old. Mine is thirteen. Here is a child who went to bed with Ozzy Nelson’s personality on the last day he was twelve and woke up the next morning as Ozzy Ozborne. Our lives went straight from Happy Days to Survivor: Hormone Breakout. Whoever first said that thirteen is an unlucky number must have had a new teenager in the hut.
It’s not that I’m unaccustomed to teenagers. I’m perilously close to exhausting all reasonable excuses why my oldest child shouldn’t be allowed to operate a moving vehicle. Before long the state will license him to drive a car, which will terminate my rights as a citizen by turning my pursuit of happiness into the impossible dream.
I’ve grown accustomed to walking alone like an escapee from Happy Valley Farms when we go to the mall. I know not to wear clothing designed to draw attention to myself, such as jeans that come all the way to my waist or blouses that are large enough to camouflage my behind. I’ve been trained not throw my hand up in a friendly greeting or act like I’m a blood relative if I happen to see my child at a football game, and I know not to say the word potty in public.
At least with my older son, I was given fair warning. With Mutant Human 2, the transition was like Dr. Jekyll and Martha Stewart, the jailhouse years. At school he took it personally if asked to participate in undesirable group activities, such as lunch. Teachers who expected him to complete homework assignments EVERY day, and who indulged in summer reading lists that didn’t involve Japanese animation were trolls. When subjected to standardized testing, he hyperventilated, experienced Suddenly Sullen disease, and threatened to move to Montana and indulge in steer wrestling.
I don’t know if it’s his perpetual smirk or the 360-degree eye roll when I speak that barbecues my potato chips. Perhaps it’s the nagging idea that he managed to restructure my nervous system into an alternate design made from rolls of bubble wrap. And he’s popping all the bubbles.
I’m comforted by the rumors that there are parents, alive in captivity, who survived the teenage years. Sure, a great many of them now have facial tics and are given to muttering to themselves and staring blankly into space for long periods of time, but they’re alive, hold responsible jobs, and can open their own mail. I am personally acquainted with parents who know not to wear spandex at the beach or brown socks with Birkenstocks, who can successfully record the message for the answering machine, and who can figure out by themselves how to pay at the pump when they get gas for the car, providing they have chosen the gas option instead of saving their pension for retirement.
They say if I make it through the next ten years, I’m home free. They also say that the worst part of having a teenager is the bizarre Hulk-like mood swings. Of course, I’ve heard that with hormone therapy and proper rest, I’ll get over it.
But I have to wonder if there’s money to be made in steer wrestling.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)