If your parents never had children, chances are you won’t, either.
— Dick Cavett
Well, I am back home in Portland, sitting in our blue recliner chair in raggedy sweatpants, freshly bathed and showered, with a glass of chocolate milk on the floor next to me.
The life of a college graduate.
Now, when I told most of my friends that I was “moving back in with my parents,” I watched as they cranked smiles from their lips and politely responded, “That sounds…fun.” For after experiencing the independent college lifestyle for four years, sharing a bathroom with your sister and being expected to make your bed doesn’t sound like the most glorious lifestyle.
But speaking from personal experience, it’s not too bad.
Of course, it’s only been a couple of days—one of which was spent unpacking all the junk I accrued down south—but at the moment, life is looking up. However, give me another 72 hours and you’ll probably find my hair in weedy patches and a straitjacket around my arms.
I do love my family. I do. But there are just certain habits, certain idiosyncrasies that make me want to punch myself unconscious. For instance, today, when I went to pick up my mom from my grandpa’s house, I found her sitting out on the steps eating a rice cake dipped in some kind of white dressing.
Which dressing you ask? Well, when I asked her the same question, she provided me the answer by blowing in my face.
Ah. Blue cheese. But not just your typical blue cheese. This had to have been the bluest of all blue cheeses, one with “plenty of extra garlic.” For as my mom continued to tell me stories on the ride home, the expelled radioactive repugnance started to leave me light-headed.
Yay living at home.
And let me not forget my sister, her need to re-watch episodes of Friends trumping even the NBA finals (though in this case, it was probably better that I didn’t see all of the game). Or my father who wouldn’t go to a jeweler located closer to home because there was once an employee, years ago, that “had given some attitude”. And even my partner-in-crime brother isn’t free from causing me irritation— as when one of his clipped toenails strikes me in the face.
And don’t even get me started on the cats. Thank goodness they don’t understand English or I’d probably wake with cat urine all over my sheets.
But it’s not like I will have to endure these familial abrasions for long. Oh wait, that’s right, I’m here for a year.
But like I said in the beginning, living at home isn’t too bad. And I’m sure with the proper amount of patience, mediation, and sedatives, I should be able to survive whatever my family intends to subjugate me to.
Or you’ll find me running down I-5 South.
Exasperatedly
jdt