Tonight, I Became my Mother

Well, what everyone said was inevitable has truly happened. I've been noticing signs of it for a while now, little quirks that are more than familar, they are ingrained into our family tapestry, but tonight it became official.

Tonight I became my mother.

Now, before anyone gets upset let me clarify, I love my mother. I think that she is a truly strong, amazing, beautiful woman but she has one particular habit that I swore I would never pick up. In fact, I think it was at the top of my list of "Things I'll Never Do When I'm a Grown-Up."

You think I'm kidding? There really is a list, and every time I got into a fight with my parents, I would add what offense I thougt they had committed to it.

Yeah, I was a really difficult child. and teenager. but on the good side I'm a down-right pleasant adult.

Anyways, the list is long gone, and I'm sure that in the future I will do absolutely everything that I wrote down, because they're all things that normal adults do. Like not let kids eat dessert whenever they want, or limiting our Mountain Dew intake in an attempt to curb the particular addiction that plagues our family.

But, I digress.

The particular offense that I committed tonight was shopping along my neighbors' curb and bringing home my first "please take me!" piece of furniture. In my defense, I think it's a chair with a lot of potential, "it has good bones" as I think my mother would say (but I'm not precisely sure, so Mom, if you don't care to be associate with this particular phrase, then I'm now certain I didn't get it from you.)

Anyways, I know this is a common occurance, in fact, we did this on a regular basis when I was growing up. We would be happily driving down the road, singing along to whatever Deliah-esque song we were listening to, when my mother would slam on the brakes to look at something that some one had lovingly placed (read: chucked) onto the curb. And as she sat there trying to decide whether or not it would fit, go with our house or was a lost cause, I would sink a little deeper into the chair of Ruby (our mini van; yes, named it, my brother and I were abnormally attached to it.)

And as she would start moving things around in the trunk and employing my brother to help her load it up, I would stare out the window and hope that she would hurry up before someone came outside.

Now, I know you're thinking I'm some kind of furniture snob. But before you judge me too harshly, you should know that my apartment was outfitted using Ikea and Craigslist for under $500, and I just picked up a please take me! chair for pete's sake.

It was never that I was opposed to using other people's stuff, it's that I always felt like we were stealing. And even tonight, I didn't pick up the chair on my way home from the store, I went back when it was starting to get dark. And quickly loaded it up with a pounding heart, still hoping that I could get away before someone came outside.


And I did.