I used to make fun of my mother all the time. Shaddap, it was a mutual thing we did, lots of fun. I was sharper of wit, but she was big on schadenfreude. Which is German for ‘I enjoy your misfortune’ or ‘I’m afraid of my own shadow’. You decide. So, ma would go for the kill, and then you would hear the dirtiest laugh, which would be the creak on the hinges of hell. Ma took great pleasure in her evil ways.
We got along just great. We ‘got’ one another. I visited her most every day, so some of her evil ways rubbed off on me. When I was younger, they did not, because I was snottily superior. At age ten. She loved me anyway and I grew out of it. We were good friends in my adult years. Ma provided an excellent model for friendship. If you didn’t mind the whole mockery-with-a-dirty-laugh thing. Well, I dropped the mockery, and used my madd diplomatic skillz. The laugh? Not when I’m working.
Of many things, I would mock her failing eyesight. She would grin because she knew the same fate awaited me.
And you know what?
I have this little netbook, because it doesn’t hurt me to carry it. My neck has gotten even with me after years of poor posture at a desktop computer. The screen is so tiny that I keep a magnifying glass nearby to decipher the html, where punctuation completely counts.
Now who’s having the last laugh? Shaddap, Ma.
Torch Says:
