"One For The Kids"

I've known my mother for twenty years, and before that, I spent eight months in the womb listening to her heartbeat and making her throw up whenever she walked into the mall; this has made me very, very familiar with her tricks and her manners. So it tickled me to no end when I walked into the kitchen the other day, thinking about taking a nap, when she told me that the schedule I was planning for my evening wouldn't work, as we were having dinner in five minutes, and then the home teachers were coming over, and then I needed to vacuum. I looked at her, the little cogs in my brain working, and informed her that she and I both knew dinner would not be ready in five minutes, that she was exaggerating as usual, and my vacuuming job wouldn't take more than ten. And I was right. Then later that night, I walked into the empty living room to use the computer. My sixth sense tingled again, and I KNEW my mother had just used the computer, even though I had been folding shirts upstairs in my room and would have no way of knowing that. It just seemed like the time of day she would have chosen to be on the computer... and as I flicked the mouse, her desktop background materialized, and I knew I'd been right again.

Knowing my family as well as I do, though, will never prepare me for the events that occured at dinner the other night. We were sitting down, having a nice meal, and my father remarked that he had accidentally left Nascar on on the television. I figured this was some kind of slang, or perhaps a setting on the surround sound I didn't know about, so I asked. He looked at me, and said, "Nascar. You know, cars racing?" Excuse me, what? You don't watch Nascar. You fiddle with computer code and slice golf swings and buy electronic equipment by the truckload when Mom's not looking. You do not do things like watch Nascar. You're my FATHER. I misheard. Yes, somehow, a neuron misfired in my brain, and I misheard what you said.

But I didn't mishear. And when I ventured toward the television later, cars were still zipping around in all their high definition glory. I don't know how to even begin to handle this.

I thought that was all, until this evening. I was at Kohl's with my mother and grandmother, and at the checkout they have a pile of books that no one in their right mind would ever buy. Just the other day I'd been in there visiting Kristin, saw a book of 1,000 uses for duct tape, or something hideous like that (I'm not making the duct tape part up, it's the number I'm unsure of), and wondered out loud what kind of person would find such a thing amusing enough to purchase.

Well, I received my answer tonight. My mother spotted the duct tape book, thumbed through it, and started LAUGHING. Laughing at the hilarity of it all! I hope I'm not a carrier of whatever gene causes that, because I can tell you right now, I will not be passing it on to a future generation.