I don't know why we don't get more invitations.
My mother prepared a wonderful dinner tonight of baked pork chops, green beans, baked potatoes, and a lovely dessert of homemade-from-scratch chocolate pudding.
We had a couple of my mother's girlfriends over for dinner: Natalie and Honore. "Girl"friends is purely a polite term; one of them is 68, the other is 79. However, they're both old (very old!) friends of the family, and they've been good friends to my mother for many, many (many!) years.
Natalie had brought a package of chocolate chip scones from the supermarket downstairs, as a courtesy gift. I had just finished thanking her and assuring her we appreciated the gift, when my mother (busy in the kitchen) ran across the package, and said "WHAT the FUCK is this?!" as she pointed accusingly at the package of scones on the counter.
In my heartiest, now-let's-play-nicely-children voice, I piped, "They're chocolate chip scones that Natalie brought. Wasn't that nice?"
And my mother - neither drunk nor tired - roared, "I HATE fucking SCONES. WHO brought these FUCKING SCONES?"
Suddenly Natalie sang out from the other end of the apartment, "*I* brought the FUCKING SCONES!"
Fortunately, both of our guests were Jewish princesses, and rather than anyone being offended, "fucking scones" became the watchword of the night.
(Well, Honore winced a lot and raised her eyebrows at me, as if to say "Bad enough your mother EATS like a truck driver, now she SOUNDS like one, too.")
"Would you like some pudding with your FUCKING SCONES, Allan?"
"Oh here, have some water; you must be terribly thirsty from those FUCKING SCONES."
Truthfully, the scones were quite tasty, and went quite well with the chocolate pudding. And with [at least one or more of] the three Jewish princesses (plus me) yelling "FUCKING SCONES" every fifteen or twenty minutes, it was certainly an entertaining evening. (Well, maybe not for Honore; but after nearly fifty years of friendship with our family, she's hopefully used to us by now.)
The remaining scones vanished mysteriously. I assume Natalie took them with her (in a huff) when she left.
After Natalie & Honore had left, I actually lured my mother into sitting down and trying out the new home theater, by wagging her new copy of "Funny Girl" at her. We watched about 2/3rds of the movie before getting too tired and having to go to bed. But my mom is actually using the home theater system, and has actually asked me how to start watching cable TV with it. (That won't happen until I finish integrating her old VHS VCR into the system, since she uses that VCR to tune in her cable TV.)
My mother and I kept trying to talk civilly to each other after the guests had left, and I tried my best to scold her for being so rude, but we both kept bursting out into riotous laughter, in-between one or both of us wheezing out "FUCKING SCONES" every three or four minutes.
I'm still giggling and muttering "fucking scones!" to myself even as I type this.
Surrealistic, yes ... but a perfectly normal evening in my family.
Fucking scones.
We had a couple of my mother's girlfriends over for dinner: Natalie and Honore. "Girl"friends is purely a polite term; one of them is 68, the other is 79. However, they're both old (very old!) friends of the family, and they've been good friends to my mother for many, many (many!) years.
Natalie had brought a package of chocolate chip scones from the supermarket downstairs, as a courtesy gift. I had just finished thanking her and assuring her we appreciated the gift, when my mother (busy in the kitchen) ran across the package, and said "WHAT the FUCK is this?!" as she pointed accusingly at the package of scones on the counter.
In my heartiest, now-let's-play-nicely-children voice, I piped, "They're chocolate chip scones that Natalie brought. Wasn't that nice?"
And my mother - neither drunk nor tired - roared, "I HATE fucking SCONES. WHO brought these FUCKING SCONES?"
Suddenly Natalie sang out from the other end of the apartment, "*I* brought the FUCKING SCONES!"
Fortunately, both of our guests were Jewish princesses, and rather than anyone being offended, "fucking scones" became the watchword of the night.
(Well, Honore winced a lot and raised her eyebrows at me, as if to say "Bad enough your mother EATS like a truck driver, now she SOUNDS like one, too.")
"Would you like some pudding with your FUCKING SCONES, Allan?"
"Oh here, have some water; you must be terribly thirsty from those FUCKING SCONES."
Truthfully, the scones were quite tasty, and went quite well with the chocolate pudding. And with [at least one or more of] the three Jewish princesses (plus me) yelling "FUCKING SCONES" every fifteen or twenty minutes, it was certainly an entertaining evening. (Well, maybe not for Honore; but after nearly fifty years of friendship with our family, she's hopefully used to us by now.)
The remaining scones vanished mysteriously. I assume Natalie took them with her (in a huff) when she left.
After Natalie & Honore had left, I actually lured my mother into sitting down and trying out the new home theater, by wagging her new copy of "Funny Girl" at her. We watched about 2/3rds of the movie before getting too tired and having to go to bed. But my mom is actually using the home theater system, and has actually asked me how to start watching cable TV with it. (That won't happen until I finish integrating her old VHS VCR into the system, since she uses that VCR to tune in her cable TV.)
My mother and I kept trying to talk civilly to each other after the guests had left, and I tried my best to scold her for being so rude, but we both kept bursting out into riotous laughter, in-between one or both of us wheezing out "FUCKING SCONES" every three or four minutes.
I'm still giggling and muttering "fucking scones!" to myself even as I type this.
Surrealistic, yes ... but a perfectly normal evening in my family.
Fucking scones.