Everyone has a moment in their life where they realize that their mother takes great amusement in their
plight. This was mine.
I was at Leedy's "Family Restaurant" in Alfred, Maine, having dinner with my mom and dad. Somewhere in the course of conversation, my mom asked me, "So, which one of those waitresses do you like?" Slightly baffled, I glance around the room. Most of them were at least somewhat attractive, some were really gorgeous, and one struck me as being somewhat "my type". "That one over there," I nodded towards the waitress in question. Mom looked over her shoulder for a second before turning back towards the table and saying, "Oh, she must be screwed up. What about that one over there? You probably picked the most screwed up girl in the room," and laughed. My dad joined in.
What do you do in a situation like this? You MOTHER is making fun of your choices in girlfriends in the past.. but the thing is, she's not terribly wrong. I mean, I DO seem to find really bizarre girls with "issues", or mild neurosis that get on everyone's nerves. There was the manic-depressive that wasn't taking her Lithium. She had carved "Leave me Alone" in her upper thigh with an Xacto knife at the age of 14 and you could still see it at 19. There was the overreactive irrational immature one who blamed all the problems we had on me. There was the one that thought I was going to leave her (and I was) so she first faked a pregnancy and then threatened to commit suicide if I left her. There was the flaky one that was so obsessed with Billy Joel that she could hardly talk about anything else. Then of course there was the lovely swimmer who had a nervous breakdown and didn't really deal with that so well and took it out on her friends, myself included.
So I couldn't really help but look helplessly at my parents.. because my mom was right. Even if she was being mean about it.