Just Shoot Me

The beer arrives.
Gregory arrives.
The food arrives.
The indigestion arrives.

I try to drown out the brainwave scrambling sound of Mom's yakkety yakkety yakking with chat of my own. With intense concentration on conversation at the other end of the table. With the sound of my own chewing. She is like an air horn.

I alternately wish she would shut up (Fat chance) and that her lips would swell to the point where they muffled her voice. I also pray for an act of God. A sink hole. A falling rock. An alien abduction. A hostage situation.

But lunch takes its course. Several courses, actually. Thank God for the beer. It may not have mellowed Mom but it dulled my senses sufficiently to not actually go through with jabbing a fork in anyone's eye just to get them to stop talking. Or breathing, for that matter. As appealing as the idea is, even now.

Soon enough we are leaving the pub, heading for home, discussing the directions ad nauseum. I've never met people who bicker as much as Mom and Bill over "the best way to get there" when there is no hurry, no deadline, no place to be. Who cares if we have to stop at a light or go around the park? What? We might be delayed 5 minutes in getting into our comfy pants?

I text friends the entire way back to the house. Threats to gouge my own eye out with a spoon. Pondering why anyone would ever question why I drink. Bewilderment that I am within 10 miles of normal after my upbringing.

We get to Charlotte and Jack's. We make small talk. And I realize that Mom and Bill and I have run out of things to say to each other. I see them a maximum of twice a year and I have nothing to say within hours.

Nothing I'm willing to say, it will only be repeated with disdain when I leave.

Nothing I am interested enough to ask, in spite of the morbid curiosity I have about how my mother manages to get through a day without making herself cringe. Or even slapping herself across the face.

Current events are off limits. All roads lead to a loud, violently disparaging diatribe about our President.

I warmly say my goodbyes to the boys and my sister and Jack. I half heatedly kiss my mother and Bill. I get in my car and point it in the direction of home.

As lovely as graduation had been, I find that I am unmoved - indifferent - to my mother having attended. If I were to replay the highlight reel of the day, there would not be a single frame with her in it. Her attendance was a non-event, however grating.

I doubt that I'll even care if she comes to Pat's or Hil's graduation. Or wedding. Or anything else. Something to think about.