It was great to see my mom, it was great to see my brother. And, um, my mom has these idiosyncrasies that I feel like I’m starting — I think they’ve always been there, but sometimes I think as — one of those interesting things to watch is to witness how maybe some of those idiosyncrasies begin increasing in intensity as people get older sometimes. And finding that line between like, “Oh yeah, that’s just my mom being weird,” and also wondering like, alright but at what point is this too weird?
I’ll give you an example. She has a stove that she bought brand-new probably five years ago. She has a dishwasher she bought brand-new 10 years ago. She has a sink that she bought brand-new 15 years ago. And she doesn’t let anyone use any of the three, and she doesn’t really use them either. And I know you’re saying that, “Well, that’s obviously not true.” But for instance, my brother’s wife got my mom a really cute tea kettle within the past couple of years. And while we’re there yesterday, she told my brother, she’s like, “Let your wife know that I’m using the new tea kettle. Look, here it is. I’m, you know, using it every day!”
And you’re like, “Oh, see, she’s using the stove.” No, she’s not. She has a separate electric griddle or grill, heating element that she plugs in that she bought somewhere. And she cooks on that so she does not have to use the actual stove. The actual stove is just a monument, not to be used for anything. Or the burners. And anything she needs to actually use a burner for, she has a separate thing that she probably bought at Goodwill that she uses for her cooking.
She told me the dishwasher’s been used three times, and she’s not a great hand washer so like it creates a weird situation when you’re eating something there. And then the sink, she would just prefer that we don’t use at all. She’ll take care of any water or whatever and then she’ll immediately wipe it out when done. And you hear that and you have to be like, “Oh okay that’s, that’s certainly something.” But then you’re in a place of like, what do you do to – do you just let bygones be bygones and say alright, my mom’s a little, idiosyncratic?
But sometimes it affects our ability to come see her as often. You can’t spend the night at someone’s house as well when you can’t use any of the amenities, you know? So it gets harder and harder to see her sometimes. And you try to softly put that out there and you get the feeling that she would rather just accept not seeing us as much if the trade-off is that she would have to, like, use her dishwasher. You know, that’s a weird spot to be, but for her birthday you don’t really go there. We were there to celebrate.
And we did, and it was great to see everyone. And she had a — seemed as though she had a really good time.