My Mother's House

Some people get warm fuzzies everytime they go to their mother's house. They look forward to it. It's a place of comfort. It's "home."

In this instance, I am not "some people."

This house isn't home. It's not the house I grew up in. It's not in the same town and, frankly, it's light years away from where I grew up.

Not only is it a different man that lives in this house with my mom (and so different from my dad that it's not even funny!), but . . . well, a lot of things have changed.

In my mother's house back when *I* was growing up, kids couldn't do anything. Strict with a capital S. Hell, strict with a capital S, capital T, capital R . . . you get the picture. But now in my mother's house? Apparently, children get away with everything.

"Oh, Brandi, they're only young once."
"Quit getting onto him. He's just having fun."
"Jaybird, you come here to GiGi. It's okay."

*Pulls hair out*

Some things never change though. There's always the latest copy of Good Housekeeping at my mother's house (and, no, I would never buy it but holy clogged arteries, Batman! This one has Paula Deen with her favorite Christmas cookie recipes). There's always the latest copy of a book from a favorite shared author at my Mother's house. There's always Diet Coke and season-appropriate napkins on the dining room table and a plant that is about two days away from being DOA.

And always . . . it never, ever fails . . . her refrigerator is fucking disgusting.

There are milk cartons pushed to the way back that I'm terrified to look at the expiration dates. There are millions of cool whip containers that have been washed out and now store green beans with fur growing on them (hey, I wonder if Jaybird could turn that into a song . . . beans with the fur . . . ). She inherited it from my grandmother. I shit you not, I was at my MawMaw's house once and found a jug of milk that had expired *throws up a little in mouth* eight months previously. I swear to Jesus, I am not lying. EIGHT MONTH OLD MILK! IN HER REFRIGERATOR! That's, like, the seventh level of disgusting.

FYI: My own fridge isn't exactly immaculate, but it's cleaned out at least once a month. And milk is thrown out as soon as the expiration date is up.

Something else my mother inherited from her mother?

If they find a bargain in the food aisle, they buy it. It doesn't matter if it's navy beans (who the hell eats those?) or beets or watercress of what. If it's on sale, they'll pick it up and inspect it. Look at the price and say, "Wow, that's a good deal." Then they'll haul five or eight into their cart. I witnessed this very thing tonight. Mom and I were in Walmart when we passed the sweet potatoes. "Twenty-five cents a pound? Wow! That's a good deal. I should stock up." Who eats sweet potatoes, Mom? "Well, um, I'll take one for my lunch tomorrow. And, um, we can try to make a sweet potato pie for Thanksgiving. Yup, a pie. That's what I'll do." Do they really put 18 sweet potatoes in a pie? Doubt it.

Right now, if you were to open my mother's pantry, you'd seen canned vegetables stacked up practically to the ceiling. And, yup, there are the "necessities," but there are also the cans that you just know will be making their way into brown paper grocery bags for the next canned food drive for the needy. There's also at least six boxes of stuffing (a few of those will be making their way into my suitcase before we head back to the Big D), several boxes of cereal, more Ziploc bags that I can imagine her using in her lifetime, and two humongous multi-packs of Bounty paper towels (also will be finding their way into my suitcase).

There are certain advantages to this Mass Food Buying. For instance, I've been wanting to try the whole "use a diet soda with a boxed cake mix" for a while now. But I'd either not have the cake mix or not have the diet soda and I never wanted to make it bad enough to pack up both boys, a diaper bag, and drive the whole two miles to my local Tom Thumb. But, there's never a shortage of cake mixes at my mother's house (and, hot damn, you better believe there's never a shortage of diet soda). So that cake? Yeah, made it today.

My mother's kitchen is a dream for someone who enjoys cooking. There is always whatever ingredient you need right on hand.

Maybe I'll have to look a little more deeply into this whole "Hey! It's on sale!" style of buying. Hmm.

But, I promise you, as soon as I get home I'm cleaning out my fridge again.