042105How To Irritate Me In Under 30 Minutes
Just in case you wanted to know…
1. Ask me if I’m taking vitamins. Yes, I am on a vitamin. I have been since January of last year. Just because I say I’m tired doesn’t mean I’m not taking a horse pill full of nutritional goodness. Maybe it just means I need sleep. Let’s think about that one.
2.Ask me where The Love is. This would appear to be an innocuous question, however, when he’s at the same place he was yesterday and this entire exchange is a bad case of deja vu, it’s annoying. Yesterday he was at work, but today, today he’s in Calcutta playing Three Card Monty on a street corner.
The follow up question is “What time did he leave?” Hmm…I don’t know…maybe it was late, late last night, under the cover of darkness. Yes, that’s when he left, and he made his getaway in a school bus.
3.Discipline my son by closing his hand in the cabinet.Trust me, The Monkey will one day close his hand in the door, he doesn’t need any assistance in that area. Take today, for example, when he pulled the trash bin down on himself. Lesson learned sans third party. For now he’s just happy pulling the duct tape locks off and trying to unstick his hands from each other. Let’s hope you don’t apply the same methods to teaching him about stove burners and crosswalks.
4.Tell me how you’re going to make sure The Monkey gets a suntan. The boy is notably darker than myself, but apparently not dark enough. The obvious answer to this is to take him in the sun, until he toasts like a marshmallow and has acquired a new, darker, complexion. Well I certainly hope we’ll let his skin slide in the winter, I wouldn’t want to find him catching rays by the toaster.
5.Tell me how hard life is.Talk about preaching to the choir. It’s always wise to impart this knowledge to someone who was born to a chemically dependent mother, raised in a crack house, and abandoned by an alcoholic father. Yes, life is hard. I’m pretty sure most of us know that. Doesn’t change that you have to live it though.
6.Ask me when I’ve eaten. “Did you eat yet?” Yet meaning relative to when, exactly? Have I eaten since I was born? Why yes, quite a few times. Have I eaten since this morning? Again, more than once. Have I eaten dinner? Being that it’s four in the afternoon and I told you YESTERDAY I would eat when The Love got home, no. ”
“When did you eat lunch?” Sometime between breakfast and dinner. I know, that’s a radical notion, but what can I say, I think outside the box. Not specific enough for you? Let’s pinpoint it. I ate at 2:15 p.m. EST. That’s 7:15 in London (so maybe I did have dinner…), 8:15 in Paris, 11:15 in Kabul, and 1:15 in Yangon. Are we happy?
7.Tell me The Monkey should be on Medicaid. I am NOT A fan of repeating conversations, I find it so hard to stay amused. So when this freaking topic comes up for the 36th time in 10 months, I get a little ill. If Medicaid were necessary for the boy, he’d be on it. It’s not, so he isn’t. While we’re on the subject of useless things for him, let’s sign him up for Lifeguard training, Underwater Basket Weaving, and Zen Breathology. I hear the Y offers all of these, and I’m sure these are skills he needs for that edge in life.
8.Ask me If I’m on The Pill. No no! I thought The Pill was WAY TOO REVOLUTIONARY! I go it the old fashioned way, I cut a lemon, stick the rind up my twat, eat nothing but greens for 2 weeks and pray to the entire laundry list of deities (Increases my odds of one of them hearing my prayer). It was so incredibly effective thousands of years ago, must work now. Why fix something that isn’t broke?
9.Ask me what my mom thinks.“What does your mom think?” About what? I’m sure she thinks about all sorts of things. I don’t really think you expect me to sit here and contemplate the myriad of thoughts that pass through her mind in any given day, so let’s narrow that down a bit. What does my mom think about Mushrooms? Can’t stand them. Burgundy? Favorite color. Ferris wheels? Right up there with mushrooms. Do you feel enlightened now?
and last, but certainly not least…
10.Tell me to say something.If I had something to say, I’d say it. Just because we are in the same room does not mean I need to get out my soapbox and spin an aural tale. That’s why the made TV, so us storytellers can get a rest. Can’t find the remote? Tough.
