I went to visit Mom last night after rehearsal and asked if I could take my makeup off with her makeup remover. No problem. She followed me into the bathroom, giving me all of two inches of personal space, got out the goods, and proceeded to cottonball my eye liner off without any warning.
I think like when you give birth, you clean your baby all the time b/c all they can do is lie on their back and wave their limbs feebly? My mom never got over that stage. She like bent my face toward the sink and pointed to the soap I should use (which was the only soap out, duh), and then, unsatisfied with how I washing suds-ing my cheeks, pushed my hands a way, and soaped my face. I dunno. It’s very Korean Mom, to have this sense of ownership on a kid’s appearance, this utter lack of regard for any kind of boundary. And as we co-washed my face, I tried explaining that I actually wash my face 364 nights of the year. “What about the fifth one?” she asked. “Well, I’m here for the fifth one.” But instead of assuming that Mom thinks I’m mentally retarded, I decided to go with it and pretend I was at a spa. Ahhh.
Parents are lunatics. My dad left a message on my answering machine last night, and when I hadn’t called back by this morning, he got all freaked out and thought … I don’t know what, really. So he called again, and caught me on my way out the door to work. He sounded very concerned. “I just wanted to make sure you’re OK – I hadn’t heard from you, and…”
Keep in mind that it had been,, like, twelve hours since he called me. After apologizing profusely, I said “Dad, if anything bad happens to me, you’ll definitely get a call from Christine or a hospital or something.”
“Well, I know sometimes you get bad migraines.”
“If I had a migraine, I probably wouldn’t be able to answer the phone. And the ringing would hurt my head.”
He didn’t have an answer for that one. Outsmarted by my brilliant logic again! But I still felt bad for not calling him. So I guess he won this battle, as usual.
Ahhh…it’s good to be back.
oh my god that’s hilarious. thank you, b/c i wasn’t sure i express properly how unnecessarily protective my mom can be. welcome back from the other side sachsy!!!