Six-Word Memoirs at SMITH Magazine

Mom's house. Mom's rules. Oh boy.

Backstory

1. No ice cream for two hours after dinner. It's locked in the freezer. Yes. Locked.
2. Vacuum under Constantine's seat after every meal.
3. Hang the bathroom mat over the shower rod after every shower.
4. Thoroughly wash out recycling. Egg shells can go in the compost, as long as they have been rinsed out. Coffee grounds can also go in the compost, but not too many.
5. Left-over food from Constantine's meals is to be swept into a dirty diaper and put out in the trash at the end of the day.
6. Turn off all the lights on the first floor at night. Apparently, this means even if we've been in bed for three hours while everyone else was in the living room, because last night when I got up at midnight, the lights were still on.

There will be others. There are always weird rules. I'm doing my best, I promise.

---Addendum. I can live pretty happily without ice cream. I can buy my own. In fact, I intended to buy my own until someone said, "Oh, we have a freezer full of ice cream, just have that." Ok, cool. Then, "Mom says we can't have ice cream until 8:00 because we need time to digest." I'd just like to say, everyone in this house except for my son is 21 or older. It's a little weird. And I'm trying really hard to just do what she says because I know that they're doing us a big favor letting us stay here. I'm just not a big fan of weird rules like this that under other circumstances would never fly with a grown, married adult. Some of the rules above are a little strange or foreign to me, but none of them seem grotesquely unreasonable. But then there's the completely arbitrary "because I said so" rules, and it's been a long, long time since she had any sway with me there. It's really frustrating to know that there is absolutely no rhyme or reason for some of the things she says but because of our crappy circumstances, there's nothing I can do about it.

by Wench in Six-Word Memoirs on Dec 03, 2012 | | T-shirt

Comments

Steve__Anthony says,

For the record - Constantine is the most beautiful of names.

Reading through all of your backstory it kinda reminded me of my favorite current sitcon - except I would call this sequel "It's Always FUNNY in Philadelphia."

PS - If necessary, I can show you how to pick a lock. BTW - Is there a scoop limit, too?

Loon says,

wow

lovelylizard says,

You grew up with your family, imagine how your husband feels! One day you'll look back and laugh about all the silliness, and in the BIG scheme of things, it really is just silliness.

Wench says,

Growing up, we had rules like you must eat everything on your plate - even though mom burned the grilled cheese and it's mostly a charred, black crisp, with a side of fermented carrot salad (this actually happened). We had to 'pre-wash' all the underwear, so if my toddler brother pooped and there were skid marks and I was on laundry, I had to scrub it out, along with everyone else's crotch-stuff. I have never met anyone else in my life who does this. Our pastor came to visit once in the middle of winter and my mom told us we had to go outside and wash his mini-van. Totally unsolicited. She also told my married, pregnant sister to wash someone's car once - fortunately, the woman was aware of how weird that was and said no. As kids, we had to go to our neighbor's houses and pull up their weeds - not everyone knew we were doing it, and some people were offended. We also had to pick up cigarette butts - 100 cigarettes in a plastic bag before we were allowed to come inside.

I could not make this up if I tried.

Wench says,

I guess I learned some valuable lessons - one of them is that what you feed your kid is important and not every food with a strange name is bad. I also learned that it is OKAY for your kid to eat grilled cheese without sauerkraut, and that it will do more harm than good to force them to have sugar-free peanut butter rice balls for their birthday instead of a cake. Their friends will think that's weird. I promise.

Steve__Anthony says,

I would pay A LOT of money to read more stories about your childhood. - You've already got some great titles: Thy Neighbor's Weeds --- 100 Cigarettes --- My Pastor's Dirty Van.

I'm just glad you don't seem to have any emotional skid marks.

--- and oh not - there's NO way you could be making this up. :o)

jl333 says,

You lost me when I read there were locks on the freezer that contained ice-cream.

lovelylizard says,

Calm down, jl, they can have ice cream - but not until 2 hours after dinner - digestion and all that. Wench, I would say your childhood was "unique", but at least you have a sense of humor about it. It's also interesting that your mother is not yet institutionalilzed.....

Wench says,

I love my mom to death, it's a very strange relationship - always has been. She was a very devoted mother - I can't deny her that. But I do know there are a few things I won't be repeating with my son.

accidentaltourist says,

I think your last sentence expresses what we all say as parents at least once.

DynamicDbytheC says,

And you must have a bowel movement between 0800-0830.

Mourningdove says,

OMG, I laughed until I cried with this one. Oh Wench, you have some serious material here.Its good to know that you will be having birthday cake for your kid. I want to make you one now.

canadafreeze says,

I'm glad you have a place to put all the 'stuff' - and not in a locked freezer. You tell the stories so well and with humour. Killer combo ... You can come to my house anytime and have ice cream whenever you want, and as much as you want. I only buy the good stuff:-)

Wench says,

New rule. The basement, although thankfully not drafty, is still a basement and it gets cold sometimes. As does the back bathroom, which my dad recently built in the mud room. The bathroom door is about three feet away from the door to the back yard. Neither the basement nor the bathroom has any sort of heating unit in it. For the most part, that hasn't been a big deal. We brought two small space heaters with us and have run one of them downstairs for a few minutes a day, mostly when we've just come in from outside and need to warm up. The rest of the time, they've been off. But today, not wanting my son to be cold during his bath, I brought the second space heater up to the first floor. Crossing the kitchen, my mom asked what I was doing. Why, plugging in this space heater so that the bathroom isn't freezing while my baby takes a bath.

So yeah. Space heaters have officially been added to the list of things we can't do. The reasoning - the heat turns on around 5:00 at night, so up until that point, no one else has heat, either, so he doesn't need it. I could almost buy that, too, if there were a radiator in the bathroom, but there isn't. It's an addition to the house and it's cold in there. I offered to give my parents money for utilities when we moved in, they said not to worry about it. So I'm really feeling like it should be ok to keep him warm while he's wet in a tub. No? Not ok? Huh.

Wench says,

Also - he doesn't take 40 minute baths, for eff's sake, he's in there for maybe 5 minutes. Wtf.

Mourningdove says,

I really have a problem with this one. Children do not have the thermoregulation that adults do. It is important VERY important to provide an atmosphere of warmth especially when wet.

Wench says,

Yeah, I'm pretty upset about this one. I'd also love to have the heater for showers, but as an adult, I guess I Can tough it out. I've had a low fever and horrible sore throat for three days and I'm not excited about stepping out of a shower into absolutely no heating whatsoever in December, but I'll survive. My son shouldn't have to survive, he should just be warm, no questions asked.

canadafreeze says,

This makes me shudder on so many levels. Your mom is being completely unrealistic.

L2L3 says,

A couple of them make sense, but why a dirty diaper and why at the end of the day??? The lock on the freezer...likely a breeze to pick unless it's a barrel lock. Most free-standing freezers come with a built-in lock. Try any little key that will fit in the lock. In the meantime, deep breaths. Many, many deep breaths.

lillybrook says,

Wench - I'd be upset about the space heaters, too. Can you shift the bath time? Or shorten the days you are there... this sounds like maybe WHY you are sick. So much stress.

Wench says,

Unofficial rule - more like a strong suggestion: When we first got here, my mom said that if we didn't feel like coming up to the first floor in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, we could pee in the utility sink in the back of the basement. Thanks, I s'pose, but I'd rather walk upstairs. I didn't think of it again until she brought it up a few days later - you guys know you can pee in the utility sink, right? Yes, we know...

It didn't occur to me until tonight that my mom very rarely sleeps in bed with my dad. She almost always sleeps on the couch. I did mention my parents are going 28 years strong in a loveless marriage, yes? So every time one of us comes upstairs after she's asleep to brush our teeth or use the bathroom, I guess we're waking her up.

Strangely, this makes me profoundly sad.

Wench says,

Quandry: Leftover vegetables go in the compost. But what to do with leftover caesar salad? Oh, that gets rinsed off first.