Needing Therapy On This Fine Tuesday
2006-06-13, 10:27 p.m.

Hi, it�s me. Yes, I�m supposed to be in SC right now, but Mama and Significant Other had doctors� appointments and (yet another) funeral to attend, so when Mama said they would leave the alarm system off so we could get in the house to sit and wait (!) for them, I said we could twiddle our opposable thumbs here at home all day instead. There was laundry to be laundered and errands to be erranded so we aren�t leaving until tomorrow. The kids are at that age where they must be surgically removed from their peers and video games and cable tv and the computer and there are none of those things at Grandma�s house, so neither made a peep about the delay.

I may have sounded like a spoiled brat in my last post, but the hell tree�er, hall tree, is the last piece of heirloom furniture that Mama has. I already love, honor, and cherish the rest, including the Philco console stereo that is slightly larger than a Beluga whale and was my father�s first anniversary gift to her. It has a switch for �background music�. HOW COOL IS THAT? The hall tree will remain within the family and will go to a cousin who likes fugly things. And Mama always allowed him to touch it. He�s special.

I do appreciate family history, and I do hold on to certain items, but I have learned when to stop. Once upon a time I subscribed to a near OCD form of packratitis. I still have my box of crayons from third grade. I have sheets of unused stickers from middle school. I am not right. But for all my crap-storage, I cannot touch my mother. She can work feats with 2400 square feet that David Blaine can never hope to accomplish. People stand in awe of how much that woman can pack into a room and not have the walls bow outward�not only that, but it looks decent. Still, it�s a bit much, and she calls me every other day with the Shakespearean monologue of oh the horror, the DRAMA, how I MUST help her CLEAN and ORGANIZE.

So I go.

:::cue �U Can�t Touch This�:::

I may not be the brightest tack in the drawer, but I know the difference between something you keep (obituaries of close family members) and something you don�t (several months� worth of AARP schlep, buy-our-insurance-before-you-di-i-i-i-e). But apparently not, because they all hold EQUAL VALUE. Upon her coffee table. Under her coffee table. Beside the recliners. Behind the recliners. On the hearth. In the magazine racks. In the bathrooms. In the bedrooms.

You get the idea.

Last visit, I decided to start with the Lands� End catalogs. I chose one just over a year old. I lifted it an inch off the coffee table surface�
And the Earth�s rotation came to a screeching halt.

�You can�t get rid of that! I might need that one day! There are things in the old catalogs that aren�t in the new ones so I might need the old ones if I want to order that!�

I refuse to argue with that kind of logic.

So, as per usual, under close scrutiny, I threw away one slightly unfolded paper clip, one wad of pocket lint, and one may-or-may-not-be used Kleenex, and have received phone calls every other day since as to why I wasn�t any more of a help on my last visit and why I didn�t get her house any cleaner.

And I�m going back tomorrow to do it again.

Telling her I didn�t want the hall tree ignited the mushroom cloud�now comes the fallout. So yesterday:

*ring*
�You know those little china dogs my grandmamma gave me?�
No.
�You know, those little white china dogs she gave me when I was little?�
No.
�You know, it�s about three of �em, they may not mean nothing to you (oh HERE we go. Ulterior motive # 72.)but they mean something to me, she gave them to me when I was a little girl, they�re white, it�s about three of �em��
No, you have lots of china dogs, I don�t know which ones you�re talking about.
�Well it�s about three of �em and I can�t find �em and I was hoping you had �em.�
No.
�Are you sure?�
Yes, I�m sure.
�Are you sure?�
Yes, I�m sure, I don�t have them.
�Are you sure I didn�t already give them to you? They may not mean nothing to you but I might have already given them to you anyway and I can�t find them so I was hoping you had them.� (And you�re looking for them at this very moment because�)
I�m sure, I don�t have them.
�Well if you run across them, will you let me know?�
I�ll let you know.
Love you, bye.

:::::::17 seconds later::::::

*ring*

�I found them!�
Good.
Love you, bye.

Lather, rinse, repeat. Substitute (widget, tool, paper, receipt, book, album, photo, etc) for the above �china dog�, and (borrowed, sold, lost, stole) for �gave�. My personal favorite is when she could not find the green book of quotations that her cousin had given her in 1948, and she knew, knew with the knewingest knew that a person could know, that my husband had taken it. Because a green book of quotations is a mighty handy book to have, you know.

It took her THREE YEARS to find that damn book. In her attic. Where she had put it.

Pity my husband. He is a patient man. But he is not a masochist. He is not coming to my mother�s house until Friday night, and we�re leaving for HIS mother�s on Sunday. Nobody ever said the boy wasn�t smart.

I�m a little keyed up about the high school reunion on Saturday. I was hoping to have lost a lot more weight by now. I was hoping to be a lot less something and a lot more something else, can�t quite put my finger on it. Dredging up a lot of old neuroses. I didn�t participate in our Senior Class group shot way back in the day. I didn�t have anything against that group in particular, but it just seemed so obvious that I didn�t fit in. Subconsciously I figured that the portrait would be like one of those in The Omen, with this shadowy Fickle Finger of Fate hovering over me, writing �NERD� in the sky and dramatizing how very much I did not belong. There were only 66 people in our graduating class, but no one ever noticed that I wasn't in it.

20 years and I still feel like odd girl out. They�ll be there, suave and successful, and the best I can hope for is �Mostly Harmless�.

See y�all next week.

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