"your mom is"

So, the thing is that I'm lousy at the whole Mom's day thing. For real. My mother has everything and she doesn't even know what to do with all of THAT and what she doesn't have, she goes out and buys. And then has to find a place for that. Their attic is over-flowing and there are no bare places on walls there. Country stuff and antiques, especially antiques -- this is her thing. A few years ago I figured out that the only "thing" I can give her on Mother's Day that I couldn't buy at the Crackhead Country store is time with me. It's arrogant and assuming, but it's true and I AM an only child. I started using the day to take her to do the things that she likes to do. Which basically means that I have to follow her around antique malls.

Today, it took an amusing turn when I had the full-on epiphany that the reason she enjoys this so much is because she likes to feel old. This is the only explanation I can readily come up with, because she doesn't buy anything or even THINK about buying things. But she will pull me from wherever I am hiding (usually out front smoking and talking on the phone, when I can sneak away) and show me things that she used to have. But the thing that she gets a really big, twisted thrill out of is things she used to have... (insert scary music) and then THREW AWAY. That's right. These things were potentially valuable pockets of cash that she tossed aside or sold for $5 at a garage sale. Or (almost as often a recurring theme) *I* have and where IS that thingamajobber anyways?? I TOLD you it was valuable. She ran out of room to continue hoarding things at her own house, so she "passed" the items on to me. And now the guilt foundation has been firmly rooted, so I hoard the stuff too. That's our legacy generation to generation: attics filled with potentially valuable crap. A virtual gold mine suspended over my head.

And now I do it too. I was killing time by sauntering through the booths, and I saw my old-fashioned coffee grinder in a booth -- tagged $135. Damn. I could use $135 right now! Maybe I'll just liquidate my coffe grinder!

Wow, maybe Eminem was just telling his mom he was cleaning out his closets b/c he was getting rid of all the antiques she was making HIM hoard?? Huh? Not too crazy, right?

OH SHIT -- I GOTTA GO!
hp