11.09.2007

Only 21 more days of NaBloPoMo

Let's face it: we're all getting older. Some of us more than others. Like Grendel, for instance. Anyway, today I had one of those horrifying moments when it became clear that not only was I doing something my mother does, but I was doing something my mother does that I have frequently decried as unacceptable and probably indicative of a steep decline into insanity. What I did was to take some of the clutter from our house and put it into my car since we're having visitors this weekend. Now, that sentence looks banal, but the content is, frankly, horrifying. It means that I have crap that I cannot organize, crap that I am also perhaps irrationally unwilling to dispose of, so I am placing it in my car as though my car is a storage facility. And speaking of storage facilities, my mother has several - God only knows what shit is in there. Before you know it, I'll be collecting worthless magazines, and the guest room will be filled ceiling to floor with them, which is not something my mother does but is something one of my friends' mothers does, and all of the mothers' neurotic behaviors really start to blend together after a certain point.

But let me get to my question, which is the following: in what ways have you manifested disturbing behavior reminiscent of your parents? And, as a follow-up, is anything more unsettling than this, other than perhaps anything involving Dick Cheney? Don't leave me hanging, ye goats of the earth.

2 comments:

Michelle Falkoff said...

Ways in which I am turning into my mother:

1) Dyeing the grays. Too many not to.
2) Obsession with purchasing makeup/skincare products that will likely go unused for years.
3) Hyper-critical of both self and others.
4) Pack-rack-like tendencies similar to SER/SER's mother. Have been using car as storage facility for years now, though my mother's tendencies lean more toward the you-can-still-eat-this-even-though-the-
expiration-date-is-from-four-years-ago variety.
5) Lack of desire for exotic travel.
6) Knitting.

It's getting too depressing--must stop now.

PJKM said...

Among other things ...

1. Obsession with moisturizing hands.
2. Increasing use of Olde Englishe sayings, eg "listeners never hear good of themselves," etc.
3. Desire to comb messy hair of other people's children.