“Thanks Mom,” she said as I handed her a pile of clean laundry. “You’re welcome.” I turned around to fold the Fruit of the Looms but she continued.
“Thanks for bringing me into this world, for clean laundry, and for helping me through hard times.”
And then silence.
I peered out around the corner of the laundry room. No one. I checked the liquor cabinet. No, she hadn’t gotten in there. I hadn’t heard anything crash or break recently. Christmas wasn’t coming and her birthday had come and gone.
So my daughter was being genuine? Huh. Maybe I haven’t scarred her for life after all. I worry about that, you know. I mean, as a child, I made huge promises to myself that I’d never, ever grow up and repeat the mistakes my parents made as they raised me.
Yet there are days I fear the most vivid memory my children will have of me will be my face, with my mouth wide open, eyes crossed, and flames flying out of my ears.
I picture them lying on some therapist’s couch: “I can still see it, doctor. She’d fly into these hissy fits… throwing stuff away, muttering stuff about dogs and sedatives and ingrates… She had classic lines about “Oh no, don’t bother. Don’t anyone lift a darn finger to help out. I’ll do it; I always do. God forbid anyone else put the lid on the peanut butter and put it away. Why should I expect any more? What do I look like, your personal slave or something?”
The couch is highest-grade Italian leather. Nicer than any piece of furniture I was ever able to give my children to sit on. For one thing, it’s clean. No lumps, dog hair, used dental floss under the cushions or drool and snot stains on the pillows.
They’ll shell out big bucks to lie on that clean couch — money they’ll be able to earn only because I, the mother who scarred them for life, spent my chocolate budget to buy them cool gym shoes and the latest “in” logo shirt so they’d be happier students in the top schools whose tuition I earned by scrubbing toilets. They’ll share how their overbearing mother spent countless late nights quizzing them for tests and dragging them to the 24-hour store for poster board.
Yesterday, the kids and I were cruising along in the minivan when a country song came on the radio. The lyrics were something like, “We’re men. We don’t care if you think that dress makes you look fat. We just want to sit around, scratch, belch, and watch TV.”
I heard a teenage male voice from the rear, “That’s not true.”
Maybe they won’t be scarred for life after all.
“Hey mawwm! He’s trying to pick my nose… Make him stop!”
Well, not too badly.
Karen Rinehart is a newspaper humor columnist, public speaker, and the creator of The Bus Stop Mommies™. She is also author of Invisible Underwear, Bus Stop Mommies and Other Things True To Life. You can read more of her work at karenrinehart.net. Karen lives in Concord, North Carolina with her two kids, one husband and goofball dog, where they attend St. James Catholic Church. (Well, they leave the dog at home.) She enjoys hearing from readers across the States and as far away as Australia, Japan and England.
