Iron Woman

My Mom has been living with us for almost three months now and I have to say, so far, its been pretty cool. Everyone is getting along, and more importantly, no one has died.

My biggest fear is that I would be expected to change the way I do things, but I’ve been pretty much left the hell alone. And that’s just the way I like it. I’m too old and stubborn to change. That doesnt mean; however, that my mother doesn’t point out certain… habits. Nothing like having a fresh pair of eyes to help you realize that you are, in fact, insane.

Take last night for instance. I bought the game Animal Crossing: Wild World for the Nintendo DS because having AC: City Folk for the Wii just wasn’t enough. Besides, I need something to keep me busy for those nights I’m held hostage as Jack’s human pacifier before he falls asleep. So, Donny and Jack had just fallen asleep when I tried to configure the DS to our wireless and it asked for the WEP code.

I had no idea what that was so I woke Donny up and asked him, “What’s our WEP code or can you tell me how to find it?” He thought for a few seconds… which stretched into a full minute. He took the DS and groggily typed in codes. All were wrong.

“You gotta go through the router on the computer in the bonus room.”

“O.K. How do I do that?”

He sighs, gets out of bed with the DS and leaves the room. I took that opportunity to run downstairs and see what Kali, Bruklyn, and my Mom were doing. It was after 11p.m., but the girls are out of school for the summer and determined to stay up to see sunrise at least once and my mother doesn’t get off Animal Crossing on the Wii in her bedroom until at least 1 a.m.

“What’s up?,” my mother asked when I entered her room.

“Nothing.”

“Donny and Jack sleeping?”

“Jack is. I woke up Donny to get this code I needed to get the DS online.”

“Nina! Why’d you wake that man up for that?”

I then gave her the honest-to-God answer that didn’t at all seem pain-in-the-assish when I did it.

“Well, he’d only been asleep for a short while when I woke him up.”

“That’s no excuse. You need your ass kicked.”

She always says that to me. She never says that about Donny. OK, once. He left Bella outside and she chewed up a bunch of cardboard boxes and she said, “Your husband needs his ass kicked.” But usually, she takes his side.

This is nothing new. She always took my brother and sisters’ sides over mine growing up. But that’s okay too because I know that deep down I’m her favorite… or it’s that belief that keeps me from developing a complex.

Having my mother around has generated many childhood memories. Just watching her with my little sister gives me wartime-like flashbacks. Sometimes, right in front of my mother, I will turn to my 12-year-old sister and ask, “She gets on your nerves, doesn’t she? It’s okay. You can tell me. I know she does. ‘Cause she got on mine.” At which point my mother will pout and feign hurt feelings. “I do not get on her nerves!!”

“Yes you do. She’s just too young and afraid to say it, but I’m grown. You’re a pain in the ass.”

Nothing triggers old-school memories though like my Mom’s big habit (read:obsession), ironing. I didn’t even know people still used irons. When she first moved in she asked where we kept our iron. It took me five minutes to realize that we owned one and another ten to remember where we kept it… and even then, Donny had to tell me. We only own one because the lady who helped us register for wedding gifts tsk-tsk’d when I tried skipping over it on the list.

My mother irons any and every thing. She will iron socks if you let her. She has an ironing board set up in her room. Once, I went in there and picked up an aerosol can from her dresser expecting to find hair spray or air freshener. It was starch!

And she’s always trying to iron my clothes. Sometimes while I’m still in them. She follows me before I leave the house. “You want me to run an iron over that shirt?”

“Not really.”

And she says “an” iron not “the” iron as if we have more than one to choose from. She’s lucky I found the one!

I pretty much leave her and her ironing habit alone. Except when it comes to jeans. I draw the line at jeans. She sends her jeans to the dry cleaners! What the shit?

One morning, she came into my bedroom and just as she opened the door I woke up. She stood in my doorway with the light from the hallway window coming in behind her. Because of that and the fact that I was still groggy, I could only make out her outline.

“You up?”

“Yeah. Where you going all dressed up?”

“What do you mean?,” she asked stepping further into the room and thus allowing me to get a better look at her. “I’m only wearing a shirt and jeans.”

And sure enough, she was. But the damn crease in her jeans was so sharp, I thought she had on dress slacks.

“Shut up and leave my jeans alone!” She huffed out the room as I rolled around on my bed in laughter.

Then, one evening I was getting ready for class and complaining that all of my jeans were dirty.

“Want to wear a pair of mine?,” she asked going into her closet and returning with a pair of jeans draped over a plastic-covered hanger.

“Ummm…”

“Girl, ain’t nothing wrong with these jeans.” She removed the plastic, unfolded the jeans from the hanger and handed them to me.

I opened them up and it was like unfolding those paper gowns at the doctor’s office. They were stiff and paper-like.

“Jesus Christ! I’m not wearing these!”

“I ask for heavy starch at the cleaners.”

“I see. Those creases could cut a throat.”

“Shut the hell up and give me my jeans!”