Monday, April 28, 2008

Of Cleats and Ipods

The young woman called her mother early one Monday afternoon.
"I found my Ipod!" she enunciated over her cell phone.
Flabbergasted, the mother cried back,
"What! Where? When?"
"In my cleats! Remember I left my gear bag in my locker over the weekend, because I was sick and I couldn't go to practice all last week?" "Well, I gotta go to practice, bye!"
The young woman was off the phone in a flash; under the assumption that the mother would automatically drop whatever she was doing to fly to Provo High School to pick her up after softball practice.

Well, the young woman was correct in her assumption. The mother will drop everything. She will stop in the middle of dinner preparations, laundry folding, and most importantly... the finale of whatever the Barefoot Contessa is concocting on her show, to fly off to pick the young woman up after softball practice.

The mother vaguely remembers putting the Ipod in the cleats. It was supposed to serve as a wake up moment for the young woman when she finally found them. The young woman was supposed to grasp the fact that never in a million years would she, herself, ever have put the Ipod in a stinky, disgusting cleat. Only the busy, overworked, under appreciated mother would have pulled off such a stunt.

And, the young woman was supposed to feel chastened. Supposed to feel slightly ashamed of herself for losing such an expensive possesion. The irony of the smelly cleat was totally lost on the young woman, she had no idea of the lesson lost.

The mother has given up on parenting, and is now in the process of turning over all parenting duties to the father.

4 comments:

Cari said...

I was thinking of passing all parental duties over to the father over here today also. I wish he could wear a "Cari" suit and have to listen to the crap I put up with on a daily basis. Then, maybe, he'd understand why I'm not all warm fuzzies and smiles.

Sorry for venting on your blog.

jake roi said...

Love it.

In our experience, the kids need to live without mom and dad for a time before they appreciate them. Jord now loves and greatly appreciates us, and TK expresses in every email his growing appreciation. It makes a big difference for La Reine, and helps her get through those days when the younger sibs still don't seem to appreciate all she does.

I'm sure grateful for moms, as I'm sure all the dads out there are!

Cynthia's Blog said...

my response to everything of late..."show me the money" That truly is a good catch phrase. It seems to fit in every situation.

Heather said...

Great post. You should be a newspaper columnist. Any parent can relate to that one.

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