My Mombo picked a fight with me at supper over US treatment of detainees at Guantánamo Bay Detention Camp.

I wish my parents would stop watching Fox News Network during Supper.

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Your mileage may vary

1. Bathroom safety bars are already installed
2. Your share of the rent is negligible because the mortgage is paid off
3. They admire you for knowing how to work all the remote controls
4. Dad does all of your laundry. “Hey, I ain’t doin’ anything else. I might as well do my share.”
5. Mombo is in bed by 6:30. Dad stays up ’til eight thirty
6. You can use their car mostly anytime, as long as you drive them to the doctors, WallMart, or Pik N Save
7. Somebody’s always home to answer the door.
8. When you fall off your knee walker in the garden, there’s someone to root you on as you struggle to your feet.
9. The freezer’s always full
10. There’s always pie!

Sure, you love them—but . . .

1. Rush Limbaugh
2. Fox News Network
3. Jello on the shelf that expired in 1999
4. Dad turns lights out while you’re still in the room “to save electricity”
5. You throw away rotten fruit, and Dad yells at you for wasting food “What? Are they giving it away now??”
6. You are responsible for setting all electronic devices in the house.
7. Your out-of-town sister calls you form the airport to remind you that your stay there is temporary, and not to get too comfortable in their house.
8. Cheapest bargain store toilet paper
9. Supper is at five, sharp.
10. Leftovers remain in play until they’re eaten by somebody.

I’ve been a mom. I’ve been a manager. I’ve been a conniver, a manipulator, a planner, queen bee, doormat. But never— since my mom turned me out when I was 17—have I been just a daughter.

I’m so freakin’ old, I was a “Beatle Booster”, which makes my eighyish parents really, really old. They’re both tough as seal-skin boots, but I see the spark starting to flicker. Turns out, they need me here right now. Who knew? Read the rest of this entry »

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Here’s what it’s like to be a grown woman living back with her parents:

Mombo asks me if it I’ve taken any of the dust rags from the bag hanging on the doorknob in the computer room. They are used paper cleaning cloths she rescued from the trash at her (former) housekeeping job at Community Memorial Hospital in Menominee Falls. She hoards stuff like that—also empty cardboard boxes. I MUST NOT throw things away just because they look like trash. Read the rest of this entry »