Killing Me With Kindness

On Tuesday evening, when the #1 son had his Winter Choir Concert, we stopped by my mom's house to avoid a trip home to The Mansion. She's quite hospitable, my mother. She made us all a different meal. She put the TV on what we wanted to see. She nodded attentively at The Pony's computer game play. She negotiated a truce between #1 and me over who got which couch for a nap.

I know she meant well. She gave #1 the short couch, but the soft blanket. I got the long couch, but the rough blanket. She said it was soft, but I knew better. As #1 languished on his short couch stomach-down, bent up at both ends like a canoe, under his soft, soft blankie...I laid on my back on the long couch, neck askew with the pillow-propping job a la mom, my right foot hanging out in the cold, that rough blanket scratching my chin like kissing a dude with yesterday's beard. I know she meant well.

This morning, she asked how I was doing, as she does every morning in our routine conversation. "Well, about as good as could be expected for somebody with frostbite on one foot, abrasions on my face from that horse blanket you gave me, and sudden-onset scoliosis from that pillow-fluffing episode." She laughed like I was not serious.

I don't think she felt bad one bit.