Sunday

This afternoon, dad and I took turns making parts of dinner while mom played her two favorite games: (1) picking up random objects and going on about how they didn't belong there and everything got moved behind her back and (2) going on about how everything good this family ever came by was because she found it and insisted on it. You can't say or do much without triggering that speech.

A.: It's a nice day for a walk.
Mom: This is such a beautiful area. And everything is at our fingertips: grocery stores, discount stores, places to walk. Everything about here is great. I bet you don't have access to such great stores. [Pause.] I'm so glad we bought the house when we did. Your father had his doubts--he said it was in terrible shape, needed too much work--but I consulted my coworkers and they insisted that we get it. And aren't you glad we did? [Pause.] Everything nice in the house, I insisted that we get. Your father never wanted to buy anything.

Also while I was making dinner, between bouts of "what is this doing here? this doesn't belong here?" she kept asking me whether I like to cook. This is a trick question for mom; it's ammunition for her to go on about how I spend too much time on food, which is inevitable because of my crazy "diet." It's especially ironic because I have to spend so much time here cooking, to use all the food that mom insists on buying.

After the walk, we went to my least favorite store--the one that would give me anxiety attacks were I prone to them. The aisles are narrow as hell, and mom insists on making a bad situation worse by using a cart rather than a basket. And by overthinking things in the aisles. It was actually relatively uncrowded today, and it was still a nightmare. To make things extra worse, mom heads straight to the discount produce--not that there's anything wrong with that per se, but she stocks up on stuff regardless of what we already have plenty of (and of its condition). We have plenty of apples and avocados, but she grabbed a bunch of shrink-wrapped, very bruised apples and avocados. She said, "but they're a dollar" and I said "why don't you just flush those dollars down the toilet, and then we won't have to find space for rotten apples?" It turned out that dad and I were on the same page, because when she got distracted we put two of the three packs back. I didn't have the cart at that point and it still took me ages to get through all the people in the narrow aisles of the relatively uncrowded store.

Then, "what a great area, don't you wish you had all this" all the way home, and then "this doesn't belong here" all the way up to dinner. Then, at dinner,

Mom: When are you seeing your friends tomorrow?
A.: In the morning.
Mom: Who has what kids? Why don't you have kids? God said go forth and multiply.
A.: That was thousands of years ago.
Mom: I don't understand--can you not just buy some sperm???