So there I was some years back nearing my forties. That morning like nearly every morning, in silence, I staggered sideways carefully to avoid waking the dead-to-the-world sleeper in the trundle bed. The shoebox attached to my foot made it more difficult. I hunched over the nightstand, shoulders drooping. Anticipating a ring, I lifted the phone’s handset. “Good morning,” Mom had chirped. I swear I smelled happy face pancakes coming from the receiver. I hated anyone that cheery. Especially before noon.
“What’s so good about it?” I moaned softly.
“It’s a beautiful sunshiny day,” she glowed. “I can see Los Angeles City Hall from the kitchen window.” Mom was the smog monitor. If she could see City Hall, the air was healthy. “Nothing bad’s happened, right?”
“No,” I said, weighing the bumped knee, the sleeping intruder and the shoebox on the sympathy scale and coming up empty. “I haven’t left my bedroom yet.” I pried the box off and pulled a sticky yellow marshmallow chick from my foot.
“Well, put a smile on your face,” Mom had counseled. “It’ll get better.” She never changed. For years she’d followed me around the house saying things like, “If you whine and let your bottom lip drag the ground, you won’t have any friends” or “If you chew with your mouth open, you won’t have any friends” or “If you don’t turn out the lights, you won’t have any friends.” It always came back to that. Do as Mom said and be nice or I’d be alone.
“Okay, Okay.” It felt like being stalked by Dale Carnegie in drag. I was suspicious over the It’ll get better. What was It’ll anyway? The kids, the loneliness, the house in disarray?
“It isn’t so bad,” Mom had said. There It was again. I could hear her smile. Her sugary attitude could gag Norman Vincent Peale. “None of your situations are ground moving.” What about the California earthquake I’d barely survived? Had she forgotten? But I guessed that was her point — I’d survived. No secret there; I’d never exit in a blaze of glory or a fall of concrete.
“Mom, you just don’t understand.” Something I’d heard one of my feisty aunts say to Grandma came to mind. I used it. “If someone gave you a dog turd on a lettuce leaf, you’d eat it.”
“No, I wouldn’t,” answered Mom. “You know with my colitis the doctor says to avoid lettuce.”
Long ago I’d felt the same resignation. I’d come home from school, threw my books on the table, and griped about my best friend. “I can’t believe what Susan said about me in front of Wayne,” I steamed. “For sure he’ll never like me now. I hate her.”
“Watch what you say,” Mom chided. “Remember everyone has distressing moments, not just you,” she faded off but not before bombarding me with her last ditch saccharine diatribe. “Don’t forget — smile. Your day will go better. You’ll see.”
Yeah, that happened. I didn’t want to be nice all the time.
I liked what the character Mary on In Plain Sight uttered last night, “If you can’t say something nice, just say the bad stuff really fast.”
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