All over the macaroni salad? Naw...
So, I'm sitting here, wishing that the wind would stop blowing my cigarette ashes all over, the dog would stop nosing up on my chair and ruining the coat of polish I just put on my nails, and my stomach would stop growling because I'm too stubborn to go inside and make myself something else for lunch. I wanted the macaroni salad I made yesterday, but Mary threw it away when she cleaned out the 'fridge. Christopher told her he thought it was old - Christopher, who hasn't been home for dinner in a number of days and wouldn't know what was new and what was old in the 'fridge if it jumped out and bit him. The only thing that's old is down in the basement, in G.K.'s subterranean cave, and I have no doubt that some of those unrecognizable dishes are at the biting stage by now. I've only been nagging him to clean for a month.
I've got a million and one pet peeves that I try not to let ruin my day. When they come up, I've trained myself to ask, "How important is it, really?" (Well, the situation in G.K.'s bedroom is border-line important - he may have grown the cure for the common cold down there by now, or a deadly biological weapon) But, today, after going 'round with Mary umpteen times and asking her to please not clean the 'fridge when I'm not here, it ticked me off. George was the one who told me, in his best Grapes of Wrath meets the Beverly Hillbillies voice - "Please, Ma, don't be turrible mean when I give ya this gawd-awful news that's a-weighing heavy on m'heart!" I laughed and laughed, then got more and more impatient for him to get to the point. He wanted to play. I just wanted to know what the hell was going on.
My macaroni salad, that tasted so good when I made it yesterday and that was on my mind the whole drive back from my Ma's, forty miles over the mountain, is now, I hope, in a covered garbage can, or my cats will have what I could only think about today. Grrr!
It's not that, though - not really. Sure, there was a good buck's worth of mayonnaise in it and the last of the Vidalia onions. But it wasn't enough to set me off. Neither was the five separate instances of road construction on a forty-mile (one-way) trip. I managed through that just fine. I just turned American Beauty up loud and sang along with Jerry and the boys - at least on the way over.
It's been awhile since my hometown has had this profound an effect on me. Maybe it's because an old friend is back in town. She related to me last week that she had to move in with her mother because she found herself homeless. Here I am, dressed well for a routine trip to take my mother to for some tests, driving my almost-new Toyota mini-van, have almost a full tank of gas at today's prices, and I see her. I'm reminded that most of the folks I grew up with - poor, white trash like me - are not doing so well. I see the buildings and landmarks of my youth in rubble, razed to make room for a parking lot - or nothing at all. Even the lot where the house I grew up in and my mother lived until a few years ago is covered in weeds and road trash.
When we dropped my mother off last Friday evening after the boys' graduation, my husband asked, "What month is this?" when we drove through the downtown, all lit up. Each lampost sported a shooting star in red, white and blue. Some sort of downtown pride campaign. But it's almost all gone, and nothing new seems to be taking the place of what once was. Back in the seventies, my hometown won some sort of small-town America title. Today, there are new facades on a street with vacant buildings, the interiors falling into decay.
And my mother is falling into decay with the rest of the town. Most of her friends are gone, but she still manages to find someone in the waiting room to talk to. I listen to her talking, realizing that she's not hearing anything that's said to her. All she's doing is waiting for an opportunity to recount one more physical ailment, no matter how personal. And she'll interrupt if the subject of hemorrhoids or amputated breasts comes up.
We ran into that old friend of mine at the hospital. She came in as we were leaving. Said, "I saw you drive by. If I knew you were coming here, I would have asked for a ride." Her old mother was driving her. Standing in the hall between radiology and the E.R., she showed me why she was there. She lifted her shirt and exposed a pregnant-looking abdomen. "I have to have a CT scan. Some kind of growth." She flashed a smile full of decaying teeth. I felt something unnameable then.
But I think I know what it was: shame. I'm ashamed of where I came from, and I feel, somehow, I shrugged my responsiblity, denied them my loyalty - refused to rot with all the rest. Like my macaroni salad (Damn it, Mary) will now.
Till later...
I've got a million and one pet peeves that I try not to let ruin my day. When they come up, I've trained myself to ask, "How important is it, really?" (Well, the situation in G.K.'s bedroom is border-line important - he may have grown the cure for the common cold down there by now, or a deadly biological weapon) But, today, after going 'round with Mary umpteen times and asking her to please not clean the 'fridge when I'm not here, it ticked me off. George was the one who told me, in his best Grapes of Wrath meets the Beverly Hillbillies voice - "Please, Ma, don't be turrible mean when I give ya this gawd-awful news that's a-weighing heavy on m'heart!" I laughed and laughed, then got more and more impatient for him to get to the point. He wanted to play. I just wanted to know what the hell was going on.
My macaroni salad, that tasted so good when I made it yesterday and that was on my mind the whole drive back from my Ma's, forty miles over the mountain, is now, I hope, in a covered garbage can, or my cats will have what I could only think about today. Grrr!
It's not that, though - not really. Sure, there was a good buck's worth of mayonnaise in it and the last of the Vidalia onions. But it wasn't enough to set me off. Neither was the five separate instances of road construction on a forty-mile (one-way) trip. I managed through that just fine. I just turned American Beauty up loud and sang along with Jerry and the boys - at least on the way over.
It's been awhile since my hometown has had this profound an effect on me. Maybe it's because an old friend is back in town. She related to me last week that she had to move in with her mother because she found herself homeless. Here I am, dressed well for a routine trip to take my mother to for some tests, driving my almost-new Toyota mini-van, have almost a full tank of gas at today's prices, and I see her. I'm reminded that most of the folks I grew up with - poor, white trash like me - are not doing so well. I see the buildings and landmarks of my youth in rubble, razed to make room for a parking lot - or nothing at all. Even the lot where the house I grew up in and my mother lived until a few years ago is covered in weeds and road trash.
When we dropped my mother off last Friday evening after the boys' graduation, my husband asked, "What month is this?" when we drove through the downtown, all lit up. Each lampost sported a shooting star in red, white and blue. Some sort of downtown pride campaign. But it's almost all gone, and nothing new seems to be taking the place of what once was. Back in the seventies, my hometown won some sort of small-town America title. Today, there are new facades on a street with vacant buildings, the interiors falling into decay.
And my mother is falling into decay with the rest of the town. Most of her friends are gone, but she still manages to find someone in the waiting room to talk to. I listen to her talking, realizing that she's not hearing anything that's said to her. All she's doing is waiting for an opportunity to recount one more physical ailment, no matter how personal. And she'll interrupt if the subject of hemorrhoids or amputated breasts comes up.
We ran into that old friend of mine at the hospital. She came in as we were leaving. Said, "I saw you drive by. If I knew you were coming here, I would have asked for a ride." Her old mother was driving her. Standing in the hall between radiology and the E.R., she showed me why she was there. She lifted her shirt and exposed a pregnant-looking abdomen. "I have to have a CT scan. Some kind of growth." She flashed a smile full of decaying teeth. I felt something unnameable then.
But I think I know what it was: shame. I'm ashamed of where I came from, and I feel, somehow, I shrugged my responsiblity, denied them my loyalty - refused to rot with all the rest. Like my macaroni salad (Damn it, Mary) will now.
Till later...
Comments
I can't describe it, but I think I get what it is.
Sorry 'bout the salad.