I made a pan of Tiramisu tonight in honor of Danny coming to dinner tomorrow night. When I was just about done, my mom said she was going out for some subs for dinner. That was around 5:45. I finished cleaning up and just hung out in the kitchen, thinking she would be returning in 20 minutes or so, as it was only a 5 minute drive to any Subway around here. After waiting 45 minutes, I decided to go back in my room and get on the computer to wait. And I waited. And waited. And then it was an hour she was gone and I began to get worried. I tried calling one of the Subways she frequents, but the number was disconnected. I said, "Dad, you know Mom has been gone an hour already?" He said, "Yeah, so what?" I said, "Well, I'm getting worried. It doesn't take an hour to get subs." I thought, who should I call? She didn't have their cell phone on her - she never does, I don't know why they bought it. Should I call the Venice police? What would I say? "Uh, hello...my name is Sharon Johnson and I lost my mom." I can picture them laughing and thinking it was a prank call. But then they would remember this is Venice after all, and most of the people here are old. Out of embarrassment, any young people around here probably dodge questions of where they live, and who can blame them.
Anyway, I decided not to call the police and then I thought of calling the different Subways in town. But then, what would I say to them? "Uh, hi, um, I'm looking for an old lady who uses a walker and goes real slow - did you happen to notice one who came in there tonight?" And just as my father got on the bandwagon and started searching through the phonebook for these numbers, who should walk in, but my mom. She of course came in singing a song and walking slowly. I got up and went out to the kitchen and said, "Where did you go, to China??" "No honey, I went to the Subway off of Jacaranda Boulevard." "Mom," I said, "You've been gone for over an hour. It doesn't take an hour to get subs that are 5 minutes away." "Oh, well, you see there was a long line and one of the people in line offered for me to take their place, but I said, 'Oh, no thank you,' so I just waited like everyone else and....." She went on and on telling me about the other people waiting in line and the workers behind the counter and that one of them didn't have gloves on and a lady in line told him she wouldn't buy anything from him until he put gloves on. This went on and on. I was just happy for her to be home. My imagination takes over when she's supposed to be home and she gets delayed somewhere.
My mom makes friends everywhere she goes. She will talk to everyone and anyone. When the man who cleans the pool is here, she will talk and talk to him and it really aggravates my dad. "He's supposed to be cleaning the pool," he says, and my mom just ignores him and keeps on talking. They are polar opposites, that's for sure. My dad likes sitting in his chair all day watching the stock market and my mom never sits still. She's either doing laundry, folding towels, emptying the dishwasher, tidying her room - something - all the time. When we were kids, we were never allowed to just sit around and watch cartoons on Saturday morning. We had to do chores. My brothers had the easy stuff and I had to do the gross stuff like cleaning bathrooms, floors and ironing. Girl stuff. They got to mow the lawn, take the garbage out, clean their rooms. I hated ironing because it took so long. That was in the days when we had to iron the sheets and that took forever. Although that was easier than my father's shirts. I hated doing those because of the buttons and you had to use spray starch. When we were done with our chores, we could go outside and play, but very seldom - only if it was raining or nasty outside - were we allowed to watch Saturday morning cartoons.
Tomorrow is Saturday and maybe after I wake up, I'll go in the den, turn the TV on and watch cartoons, just to see what mom will say. That would be pretty funny, but I probably won't, because cartoons just don't hold the same thrill for me than they used to.
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