I'm such a diva (as well as an addict)

At about 10:45pm, Mom slammed the door behind her, screaming, "YOU THINK THAT EVERYONE HAS TO IMMEDIATELY GET UP THE SECOND YOU NEED SOMETHING!"

The request I made that prompted this response was,

a) Go out and get me a bottle of champagne!
b) Could you bake me a cake as a pre-bedtime snack?
c) Could I have a blanket, please?

Getting me a blanket wasn't, at the moment, on her way, and mom has this thing about doing things 'on the way,' which, while sensible in moderation, is silly at its extremes. For example, Whole Foods is about three blocks from my parents' house, a five-minute walk, so imagine my confusion when during our walk yesterday mom asked me to call dad to request that he stop there and pick up some celery on his way home.

A.: Can't we just go?
Mom: Well, it's not on our way.

True, we'd be coming from the other direction, but it would be a two-block detour. Less of one than the Bazaar on the way home from the airport. I didn't argue, partly because I think my dad likes going to the store. At the same time, this is the way my mom calculates the relative inconvenience of errands, this is why she thinks it's no problem for me to drive to McLean to deliver something or pick something up, rather than her driving five minutes to go to the post office.

Dad is a faux snob. He gets some sort of high from having pretenses of refined tastes, i.e. he likes to criticize my mother's discount shopping or just generally pronounce things 'cheap' because he thinks it makes him sound discerning. For example, when they visited me, I served some actually high-quality hot chocolate, but didn't have the milk that was recommended, so it didn't taste right. My dad didn't hesitate to pronounce it 'cheap.' I was more bemused than offended, but my mom takes offense, says she does all the shopping and he just criticizes. He continues to do it and she continues to get annoyed, respond with sarcasm. I wonder what would happen if she said, "when you say that, I get the impression that you don't appreciate the work I do to put meals together." And then dad would have to think about how his statements are received, and he might change. Maybe.

My mom, also, can say things to turn a conversation around, but that requires stepping back from sarcasm or at least valuing a change in the other person's behavior more than making him or her feel like shit, and that's a difficult calculation for my mother to make.

So last night, she could have said "I'll be up in a minute anyway, and then I'll get you a blanket." She could have even just told me where the blankets lived. Instead, the conversation unfolded like this:

A.: Could I have a blanket, please?
Mom: What, now?
A.: Well, soon. I'm going to bed.
Mom: I'll bring you one when I go to bed.

Pause. [This is where, "I'm going to bed in a minute" would have been helpful. For all I knew, she could have been going to bed in two hours.]

Dad: You can take one from my bed, I have two.
Mom: I'll just bring you one later. We have plenty of blankets.
A.: It's not the quantity of blankets in the house I'm interested in.
Mom, getting up: Fine! [On her way upstairs]: We have plenty of blankets.
A.: The abundance of blankets in the house is not relevant to me right now.
Mom: I DON'T LIKE THE WAY YOU TALK! DO YOU TALK TO EVERYONE LIKE THAT? GOOD THING WE ONLY SEE EACH OTHER A FEW TIMES A YEAR!

Then, a few minutes later:

Mom: YOU THINK THAT EVERYONE HAS TO IMMEDIATELY GET UP THE SECOND YOU NEED SOMETHING!
A.: Goodnight, mom.

***
Mom woke me up this morning to tell me that she knew I wanted to go for a run, but she wanted to be home for at least another forty minutes or so. As she came into my room, she said about the sweater hanging in the room, "did you really buy this piece of $%^&?"

***

Dad: Those pears are a bit pathetic.
Mom: A. picked them out.
A.: That was the pear selection at Bazaar.

***

Mom, angrily and sanctimoniously: A.!!! Why was this cup and saucer on the living room floor?

A.: I have no idea.

Mom: Oh, they're mine.