mrs-roboto's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Two New Yorkers and a Couple From Boston Walk Into A Bar For some strange reason, my own personal monsters (re: parents) have decided to meet up for a visit with my Monsters-In-Laws somewhere in the Caribbean. In fact, the Robotos are jetting from one island to another just to spend the day with the Monsters. Funny, considering I won't so much as cross the street to see them. The more I think about this situation, the happier I am to be on the Left Coast. I imagine them all together at some bar built of palm fronds annoying the crap out of the bartender and the waitstaff. There are truly no more disturbing people to provide customer service to then a blue collar, old school couple from Boston and two diehard, recovering-from-the-80's-stock-market-crash, yuppie New Yorkers. The New Yorkers will want everything they order to arrive faster than lightening (trust me, I am still getting over this syndrome) and the Bostonians will want everything to be familiar. I imagine the scene going down something like this: "We ordered our drinks nearly twelve seconds ago," says my mother. "Where the hell could they be?" FIL (who you may remember from such riveting entries as this one where he offered to pee in a jar) will gaze at the menu and wittily retort "What is this?!!! Tuna Carpaccio? Says it's raw tuna. Who the hell wants raw tuna? What are the grills down? Get me a burger and fries, would ya? Why ain't you got that on the menu?" "I think we should make a toast," my father will announce. "But almost a minute has passed and still no drinks. The service here is just terrible." "I say we don't leave a tip," my MIL will suggest. She's thrifty (aka cheaper than drug store perfume). Yeah, it will be good times. I'm never sure who had a more disturbing upbringing. I generally find my husband's childhood reprehensible. I have a photo of him. He's no more than five in it. He's using a giant floor sander on some home his parents were renovating for resale. The sander looks as if it is about to sever his leg. And if you ask him to recount the number of times he went to the emergency room as a child to have appendages sewn back on, there are too many for him to remember. Then I think about my parents who are spookily dangerous in their own way. My parents sought to make me independent and down to earth from a very young age. My mother was a rabid woman's libber who wanted nothing more for her daughter than a sound career as a CEO of a predominantly male corporation. I remember one day when I was also about five I went to my mom and told her I'd like to take dance lessons. "What kind of dance would you like to take sweetie?" "I wanna be a ballerina and have a pink tutu, mommy!" "Oh sweetie," she said. "I don't think so. Let's be honest with ourselves, you're never going to be a tall woman. You have short, stubby little legs and practically no grace. And the tutu is really just an oppressive tool of the man. How about we get you some typing lessons? I read in Executive Monthly that some day all white collar professionals will need to be able type because everyone will communicate via computers. Do you know about computers?" "I wanna go to Miss Janet's Dance Studio and be a ballerina." "Miss Janet is a delusional, old crow with outdated social values and an antifeminist agenda. The answer is no." You know, I still want to take ballet and I'm 30 years old but my mom was right about computers. Sigh. 3:46 p.m. - 2004-07-28 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
||||||