The Official Knower of Every Frigging Birthday
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We have an address book. In the back of that book are the birthdays of every single person in our family and a few close friends. The names and dates are written legibly, as I learned Catholic writing, which is to say, angry nuns glared at me and frightened me into perfect penmanship. And yet, without fail, I am expected to be The Official Knower of Every Frigging Birthday.
I am not. My mind is a whirling dervish of stupid facts, punchlines to jokes, grocery lists from 1998 and Prince music. I do not have space for 50+ birthdays. Or maps. That’s why we have a GPS, that inevitably gets left in the garage whenever we go on a road trip. We have a map of our state, which doesn’t help if we’re in, say, Iowa.
I am also The Official Finder of Everything. When my son was little, I found Thomas the Train cars, Goodnight Moon Bunny, Legos (by stepping on them, oh what a JOY that is), socks, crayons (in the dryer) and assorted puzzle pieces. I was a goddess. My son thought I had magic eyes that could see through walls and quilts and car doors. Now I wear bifocals and can barely see this page. And now, I am frequently asked things like:
“MOM? Where’s my coat?”
Let’s think about that for a moment, shall we? Where would a coat be? In the kitchen? No. In the litter box? No. Oh, wait. In the CLOSET? Hey! I’m a genius.
Then there are the questions that create the feeling of a 500-piece marching band running through my head wearing roller skates and hats with bells. For example:
“Honey, have you seen my briefcase?”
In my husband’s defense, when we first moved here, I did enjoy, for about a week, hiding his briefcase. I was incredibly bored and being a tad passive aggressive about being dragged halfway across the country to Green Acres. So, each morning, while he was in the shower, I would snag his lifeline to work and put it somewhere new and festive. Under the couch, in the linen closet, in the pantry, in my car, in the oven. He was not amused, and I stopped. That was a year ago, and yet, he thinks I am still doing it. It doesn’t help that I usually find it.
My all time personal favorite, and by that, what I actually mean is I believe this is grounds for second degree murder, is when one of the two men who live in this house with me stand in front of the open refrigerator and bellow “Where’s the” butter, cream, cheese, apples, margarine, spinach, lemons, soda, Jesus CHRIST. No, Jesus Christ is not living in our refrigerator, but if he was, neither my son or my husband could find him.
It’s not a walk-in freezer. You cannot store a cow in our refrigerator. It’s a standard sized fridge. I don’t have it packed like the refrigerators look on “Hoarders” with 5-year old bologna or yogurt from 1987. Although, we did happen upon leftover salmon that was green and furry and greeted us by name, but that was a few months ago, plus it was hidden behind 4 pounds of cookie dough we bought at a school fundraiser. Oh my god, that cookie dough is still in there.
My guess is that when you have a vagina, you are also expected to be a “thing” detector and an “everything” rememberer. About that everything thing. My husband, a few months ago, inadvertently moved all our bills online, but forgot to tell me. That was fun. Screaming at the bank while they asked me for his mother’s maiden name, his blood type, the weather the day he was born and the name of his first stuffed animal. He had to go down to the bank and fix it. He later told me they automatically switch you if you try and view your statement online. I threw a pillow at his head and shouted “Don’t ever click that AGAIN!”
So, I have a solution, at least for the birthday problem. I am going to find the tattoo artist who decorated Angelina Jolie’s back using ink and a nail, and have our families’ birthdays tattooed onto my husband’s chest. The look on my face was enough to keep all our bills coming in the mail, but I have no idea how to deal with the refrigerator. Maybe I should take everything out and put a blow-up Jesus doll in there.
And the briefcase.
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My son:
“Mom, have you seen my google-floogls?”
me:
“I don’t know; What’s a google-floogls?”
Sun describes some strange part of the game or something of which I have absolutely no experience
Me:
“I didn’t even know that you had one. No, I have no idea. Have you looked in the last place in which you were playing with it? [Yes, I would use the stilted language ‘in which you were playing with it’, because God forbid I should say “bag were playing with it in” thus ending a sentence with a preposition and my older son would criticize me greatly, but that’s a whole issue in and of itself]?”
Son:
“Of course I did!! What kind of inane it did take me for?”
(I am later informed that my son did in fact find his google-floogls in the last place he was playing with it. Sigh.)
I AM the keeper of birthdays, but only immediate family, as in my siblings and parents, my husband, my sons , and my immediate cousins (of which I have 2) and their parents. Anything more than that, I count on my husband who has all of the dates of my in-laws, nieces and nephews and other important friends’ birthdays online. Even as a program that tells him such things as “did you know that you are exactly 1.5 times as old as the amount of time that this couple has been married?” Or “your best friend’s will be exactly 10,000,000 seconds old on Thursday?” Or “we will have been married 2.5 Jupiter years on Tuesday”(nonstandard unit numbers are totally made up; Kevin would be able to give you reasonable estimates… Never mind…)
I will give you the one sentence that will end all of the mom or Erin where is this or where is that. It did for me, being subjected to my mother admiring her boobs. Disturbing, does not begin to tell you the levels of wrong this was. I think my dad was cool with it because he liked the woman, I was basically a hostage in the house with them 😉
Ready, “Jessica or dad (as mom is looking down at her boobs, pulling at her shirt so she can see them better) whatever you are looking for is not here, now she is feeling herself up, so I don’t know what to tell you darlings. She was a disturbed woman.
Officially..my day is made! My only addition is that when my son was little it was those dreaded Weebles I always seemed to find when I stepped on one.I still have bruises on my instep and my son is 37! <3
Mom??
Mine was always stepping on my Strawberry Shortcake or Rainbow Brite, itty bitty things and screaming to the ceiling when she stepped on one.
ROFL!!! This made my Monday and I can’t stop laughing!