Becoming My Parents
The biggest fear most of us have is that one morning we will wake up and realize we have turned into our parents. It has already hapened to me--twice--and I'm telling you, it can be a shocker.
For years, we watch our parents parade through their lives, doing the most annoying things. Things we vow we will never do. Ever. Then, without warning, it happens.
My first you've-become-your-parent experience came last year. It ivolved an umbrella.
Umbrellas, as we all know, are fickle things. Liek mittens and Donald Trump, they don't stick around for the long haul.
But even knowing that, we went out and bought a nice umbrella. Big, black, beautiful. It would be with us for life.
It was not to be.
I realized this one rainy morning when my partner, Jack, was heading out the door to work, and he pulled one of the old, mangled umbrellas from teh stand. I asked him why he didn't take the new one. He then confessed he had already lost it. Left it somewhere. At lunch. At teh bank. Didn't matter. It was gone.
And then it happened. He turned to walk away, and the words just flew out of my mouth.
"I'm just sick about that umbrella!"
It was my mother speaking, but she was not there. It was a comment that would have irritated me beyond belief as a child. Part chastising. Part guilt trip. Part just a stupid thing a mother would say.
Jack realized what was happening. It scared him. He looked at me, closed the door, and walked away, leaving me standing there in the hallway wearing a pink bathrobe, curlers in my hair, coffee cup in hand. My mother, forty years ago.
By Craig Wilson, from USA Today called, "The Final Word."
posted by Qwerty @ 5:15 PM
2 Comments:
Maybe you do it for personal effect, but often, it's hard to tell what are your experiences, and what you just pasted from something else. Not that it matters, just my feedback. But anyway, I was reading along, was was like, "who is this jack fellow... strange", and then I puzzeled at "pink bathrobe, curlers in my hair, coffee cup in hand." (You curl your hair? I thought you hated coffee... ), then I saw the last two lines. It was the same with the "Weird Names" story.
I think part personal effect. Ok. mostly personal effect. Its a shocker. I gotcha, didn't I?! My pardner, yeah, Jack's his name. :O). a) I do curl my hair, every so often, b) I like coffee when I'm exhausted, and I've developed more of a taste for it during my internship and c) I think "Jack and Jen" sounds good together, don't you? but finally, d) nope, I didn't write it, although I wish I did because its just so darn good. Ok. So there is a point where one should not cross in taking someone else's words and making them sound like one's own... but hopefully so far everything I have pirated I have given credit to, even if it is sneakily hidden at the end of a post. Ah well.
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