Word To Your Mother
Happy Mother's Day!

Unless you're not a mother, then FUCK YOU! Ungrateful, mewling little bastards not fit to lick a mother's boots. And you only ever call when you want money for drugs or another abortion. We know what you're about. Your poor, suffering mother...

Around here at the Bucket household, things were fairly standard. The kids made home-made cards. Hand-drawn hearts and flowers and "We Love You Mom". Very cliché, if you ask me. My only hope is that one of my sons was knowingly being ironic and using the immanent features of the form to turn it back on itself as an expression of parody, if not resistance against the hegemony of corporate-supported capitalist-invented holidays.

We stuck to the regular Mother's Day schedule: gathering with family, exchange of gifts, brunch at a nice place... With Mrs. Pops in particular, we went through the whole routine where she wasn't supposed to do anything and I was meant to chase the kids, make sure they were fed, pick up the house, get some laundry done... basically all the stuff I do on a day-to-day basis anyway. And of course, once the kids are off to bed, it's just to two of us so I can tell her sincerely how much I appreciate what she does for the family and then we launch into--as many Americans do--a little traditional Mother's Day CBT. We honor former generations by keeping their rituals alive.

OK, so our home set-up isn't exactly the traditional way that is presented by the Mother's Day ideal, seeing as I'm kind of the bitch in this arrangement. The inversion was complete when, at one point during this day--Mother's Day--as the glorious Southern California afternoon sky slid quietly into rusty evening, I came upon my wife scrubbing the kitchen floor.

This is not one of those "Penthouse Forum" stories that goes "I never thought it would happen to me. I walked into the kitchen and there she was on all fours..."

No, the exchange was purely verbal and it went like this:

ME: What are you doing?

WIFE: Origami, can't you tell? See? It's a swan!

ME: You're scrubbing the kitchen floor.

WIFE: Not much gets by you.

ME: But it's Mother's Day.

WIFE: Again with the observant.

ME: Well, I can do that.

WIFE (impatient sigh): Thanks, but I think some things just go better if I do them.

I wandered off to resume doing the helpful Mother's Day things I had been doing already (watching the Clippers-Suns NBA playoff game) and I thought about what she said. She was either saying:

A) The non-traditional structure of our marriage arrangement means she feels compelled to take on a few what might be anachronistically called "women's tasks" in order to remain in touch with her downtrodden female progenitors, whose memory would be dishonored by the act of me, a Penis-American, scrubbing the floor.

B) She thinks I lack the physical and/or mental wherewithal to mix soap and water, apply said solution to a sponge and then rub said sponge against a floor. A defenseless, mostly stationary floor.

Then I immediately stopped thinking about it because I was afraid of what the answer might be.

I'd consider it further here, but you people are already making me miss The Sopranos.

Happy Mother's Day to all my Baby-Having Bucketeers.

And as I sit on my bag of frozen peas, I say to all you out there, like me, who are Motherfuckers... be strong, brothers (and sisters... I haven't forgotten you). It's only once a year.


This post on the Narcissus Scale: 9.95



Pops
- posted by Pops @ 9:43 PM