Morning Edition - 7/25/07

Parent Trap
Everyone who knows me knows that my family and I are extremely close – most of all, my mom and me. My parents arrived at my apartment at 12:30 a.m. and mom quickly announced that she wanted to go to Pathmark – our 24 hour supermarket – to do some necessary food shopping. “How do you survive on coffee, yogurt, whole grain bread and toilet paper?!” mom yelled. With her first rant out of the box, I threw on my man-clogs, tied my head up in the you’re-giving-me-a-migrane-scarf and brought my car around to head out grocery shopping. Dad took one look at me and said, “I think I’ll stay behind and take a shower while you guys shop.” Both my mom and I shot him the frog face locking the apartment door behind us. The moment we walked into the grocery store (1:15 a.m.!) mother grabbed a store circular and perused it for sales. I reminded her that I had to work this morning and she said, “Is $4.69 supposed to be a sale for Cranberry Juice in NYC?!” I realized it was going to be a long, long, long morning before dawn. Approximately one hour and $150 later and I was walking to my car like a pyramid-building-Hebrew-slave while she barked that my younger brother would’ve only needed one trip to carry all the bags, but in my emaciated state her dead mother (who’s probably spinning like ghetto 22s in her grave) looks healthier. Gotta love my momma. As I pushed open my apartment door I smelled the sweet scent of marshmallows burning over an open fire and realized my dad managed to leave a pot of milk on the stove while he sat in complete and silent oblivion in the living room to allow it to fully burn my new Teflon pot and scald the top of my stove. I turned off the pot and heard mom in the living room talking to dad. “Hey, you’re going to burn us out of house and home!! What is it? You’re deaf and now you can’t smell either?!” I put the groceries away and walked in to ask my parents if they needed anything before I got in the shower, only to find them enjoying matching chocolate éclair bars like two kids. I had to smile at how happy they looked together even after 45 years of marriage. I realized that with all their quirks; the incessant bitchin’; the hysterical and dramatic laughter; they are everything I hope to be and share everything I, one day, hope to have. I closed the bathroom door behind me and leaned back on it immersed in the thought of how much we struggle to be unlike our parents, only to find later in life, that we pray to be like them – well, at least I do. The parent trap; you virtually gnaw your limbs off to get away from their grasp in your teens and then grind your nerves to bask in the beauty of everything they are.

On Blast
What character quirk do you have that is, admittedly, a virtual replica of one of your parent’s characteristics?

Keep passin’ the open windows…