Said
My momma said the phone works both ways. I am terrible at making phone calls. I sometimes am struck with extreme anxiety when I have to phone someone that I do not know well. It could take a week for me to work up enough nerve. If I make an effort to call someone and they do not call me back, as I get older it is getting easier to erase that person from my contact list.
Momma said that I should hold the door open for your mother. She practically beat it into me that I should hold the door open for a lady. She informed me that a man should walk on the street side of the sidewalk so if a car splashes the woman’s clothes will not get messy. Thank goodness she never said anything about laying my jacket down in a puddle so that a lady could walk over it instead of in the water. The last coat I bought I purchased from Kositchek’s. I would be very upset to put something from there in the dirt.
Momma said that I should pick up a lady in an automatic transmission car so that I could hold the lady’s hand. I like that one. My momma said I should take a date to a horror film so when she got scared she would jump towards me seeking comfort.
My momma said never do anything with my little head that my big head might regret. I should have paid more attention to this one. My other mom continues to give me a difficult time for not heeding this tidbit. Do you have any idea what it is like knowing someone is looking down on you shaking their head in disapproval while someone is doing the same right in front of you? Thanks moms but dang.
Momma said ‘you can do bad on your own’. This one I figured out – do not stay in a bad relationship. Unfortunately, I never got the joy of raising children. It is a joy, correct?
Momma said it was her week to be mean. I was eight when I first heard this. I figured any moment was an opportunity for what I considered meanness. I discovered sending myself to my room. I did not know what was going on. I knew I did not want to be around whatever was causing the mean. I did not realize she announced this about once a month. When I had my first girlfriend, I caught on. That was my week to be especially nice or be somewhere else.
Momma said I was too dumb to know I was not supposed to do something. Weird situations did not help me make the connection. Decades later I ended up in Howell, Michigan at the Ole Gray Nash Auction House for a Ku Klux Klan paraphernalia auction. I then realized the full impact of her statement. I fool heartedly asked a man sitting behind me if I could see his purchase. The power of his one syllable, one word response struck me like a shot in the chest. I was breathless, dizzy and had blurred vision for a moment as I understood my place immediately. I was not welcome. I was not liked. I was not wanted. I was more than damn glad that I was stupid enough to be there. At the time, though I prayed that I would be able to get home alive.
Momma said I did not have anything to offer a woman and that my bills should not be in some woman’s name. I do not think my momma realized how much women have changed. When I had the least it seemed I had the most attention. Once I got the house and car note, things seemed to drop off, as if it were some kind of power play. However there were a few times I saw gleam in a woman’s eye that made me kind of nervous. I want a woman to be with me for me and not for the size of my “pot to piss in”.
Momma asked me why she did not have any grandchildren. The question shocked me. For as much static as she gave me about shacking up and stuff I thought that would be the last thing on her mind. I did not have the heart to tell her I was already ignoring the little head / big head rule so it was not really up to me. She did not live long enough to see her next generation. That saddens me.
Momma said that thank you notes should be written for every gift because it is the right thing to do. Phone calls and thank you notes are like getting me to donate a finger, it pains me so. I am trying to change my ways.
Have patience with me momma, I am still trying. Thank you for the words, they have served me well. You probably thought I was not listening. I heard you. It has taken me a while to catch on. I wish you did not leave so soon, I could have used some more ‘my momma saids’. I love you momma. I miss you.
~Melik / me2upro.com
This column was originally printed in the May 8, 2010 – May 22, 2010 edition.
