SelfAbsorbed.ME : ‘It’s Your Life, We Just Write it Funnier’

This conversation I can only refer to as being a ‘typical’ conversation with my mother. 

Monday of last week- I tell my mother I will be in the city for a friend’s birthday all weekend.

Tuesday- My mother calls to ask when I will be coming over to see her that weekend, I re-explain the birthday.

Thursday- My mom calls to tell me that she is going to make some lasagna for me to take home, I start to re-explain birthday, to which she cuts me off saying “I know I know, I meant I will save it for another time ..such as Saturday?”  I promptly end call.

Monday morning- Mom calls and says “So…how was the Wedding?!”

I love my Mom. I really do. But her ability to keep facts straight is about as consistent as Duane Reade’s ‘sale’ on Aquafina. If I could keep a track record of these errors I might be able to write a book one day, a very long book,  titled,“Things My Mother Doesn’t Know….Starting With My Job Title.”

Sitting at a cookout a few weeks back a friend’s mother turned to me and asked, “Kim, do you happen to know what my daughter does for a living?”

Now I was about to answer this, and being on my third glass of wine I might even be able to spout out some highly detailed account of her job involving ’sea monsters’ and ‘a mermaid with a lazy eye’….but realized, this was oh-so-typical on the Mom spectrum…

The last time my mom knew what I did for work was when I was sixteen and working at Starbucks, and even to this day she doesn’t understand the difference between a latte and a coffee (MILK Mom! For the love of Christ MILK!).

Now don’t get me wrong, there are times when I forget a certain friend’s job title or company or the fact that they are highly allergic to pineapple (Ok so I served her a Pina Colada ONCE… I did not know ‘Pina Colada’ IMPLIED Pineapple) …but for the most part I have a vague idea of what is going on.

Mothers on the other hand have this wonderful ability to forget things like ‘your job title’ and yet remember things like ‘the fact that you pooped once in a public pool’ (Seriously, it was only once and I mean I was TWO what do you want from me,  I probably thought I was drowning and panicked (my stomach gets cramps when I panic) and it just came out, these THINGS HAPPEN TO ALL OF US…no?)

She does know where I live though, I will give her that. I could move into a remote part of Alaska where all they have is phone lines and a raccoon housing project and my mother would still somehow be able to sniff out where my house is. She will even say things to me sometimes like, “You know, I noticed last time I was at your house that you didn’t have a proper shade on that lamp in the corner of the back den…”

Oh THAT you noticed Mom? That is what you noticed huh?

The older I get the more I start to assess what kind of mother I will be. Will I be forgetting my children’s jobs as well? Or their allergies? My mom only had two of us, but you would think she was like the Duggan 18 (19 now, saw it on the Today show, for the love of Whopper Juniors will those people start reading a damn book at night or something?).

She will always ask, “Now is it you or your brother who doesn’t like my cheese broccoli?” Mom you had TWO children, not twelve, let’s keep it straight here, you are not solving the mystery of the sphinx.

I would like to think, that as much as I will carry on some her qualities, I would also like to invent a few of my own. I want to be the kind of mom who sips wine while she breast feeds. Wears lipstick so that her kids know that can’t be kissed goodnight. The kind of mom who is only seen in passing before the nanny shows up.

I kid, I kid. (Don’t send me hate mail).

Truthfully I want to be the kind of Mom whose rewards her kids when they are SILENT during a subway ride…or a car ride…or any kind of ride really. One who knows that hummus and carrots will never match up to spicy tuna maki rolls as appetizers. And the kind of Mom who shows up an hour early to her child’s tennis match because her new GPS is just that good.

So maybe I wont remember my children’s job titles and maybe I wont even remember their allergies (please no more Pina Colada mishaps)…but I will remember that they have a Grandmother who knows EXACTLY where their house is to come visit.