If you are the Mom of a 12 year old girl, chances are like me you have become the embodiment of all that is wrong in the world in the eyes of your pubescent princess. In the past week , I have been asked by the Diva to do the following in order to be granted limited access into the universe that exists in her mind:
1) To change the way I dress to dress more like "normal mothers who don't wear inappropriate t-shirts";
2) To change my lipstick because it is "too red and too bright for someone old like you";
3) To drown the Professor in the Ala Wai;
4) To drown the Mad Cow in the toilet;
5) To continue to refer to the recently correctly identified as male guinea pig now called "Pigletto" by his formerly female name of "Pigletta" and to continue to identify him as female;
6) To cease referring to Pigletto as a "drag queen" or mention his very large nuggets;
7) To promise to never date or remarry in the event Oscar and I ever get divorced (with the exception of a super rich guy without kids who does not want kids of his own);
8) To stop singing along with music in the car, especially "if it is a song that I like or anything from Glee";
9) To laugh "more like old ladies your age do";
10) To stop writing about her on my blog, facebook, and e-mail.
As you can see, I take her requests about as seriously as she takes my threats to pull her out of 'Iolani when she does something that really irks me.
For some reason, she seems to believe that I am extraordinarily stupid and unable to figure out that whenever she is the teensy-weensy-ist nice to me, that it is only because she wants something. While other parents adore having their oversized pre-teen curl up next to them, when the Diva slinks in next to me and says in a diabetic coma-inducing voice, "I love you, Mommy", chills of fear run up my spine as my Spidey sense knows that pure unadulterated evil is right by my side. Nonetheless, like the helpless fly in the web, I resign myself to my doomed fate and go, "What do you want?"
The response is always one of three things: Get rid of the Professor, get rid of the Mad Cow or buy me something. However, this past weekend, it was "Can I go shopping with my friends alone?"
This question has come up before but it was always answered in the negative. Having been uh somewhat of a terrible teen whose behavior probably contributed to my Dad having his first bypass surgery at the very young age of 43, I know what semi-criminal activity one can get into when free from parental wardens. Granted, it took me until age 40+ to get my first tattoo but Buddha knows, I tried many many times to make a handcrafted one using a safety pin and India ink (all within the perceived safe haven of my friends' home). Our parents all knew each other and were okay with us staying with kids whose parents were "a litle different" (translation - drunk all the time) because everyone's Mom and Dad seemed to have graduated from the same high school or were related to a friend of a friend of a relative.
It's not the same world now. I am totally paranoid about every moment my kids spend outside of my all encompassing.neurotic view. If my kids have spent any time at your house, congratulations! That means you passed a court criminal record check as are not listed on the sex offender list. Don't laugh, it's true. Why do you think my kids asked you what your maiden name was?
Maybe it was because I had spent the past two days working with very little sleep that I agreed to let the Diva go shopping with her friends, with the caveat that I would be at the same shopping center, that if I called - she must answer the phone, and if I wanted to leave, she would have to meet me and leave without a look or word of hostility. She reluctantly agreed (mostly due to the alternative being staying home with the boys) and off we went.
In the car, she read me yet another list of demands:
1) You must stay on the total opposite side of the mall
2) You must not address me in public if you see me
3) You must not wave at me if you see me
4) You must not do anything to call attention to yourself (in other words, don't act like you normally do) if you see me with my friends
5) You must not buy inappropriate t-shirts and show them to my friends if you see them
6) You must walk out of a store if we are in there
7) You must not go into stores where we may be
8) You must not speak to my friends even if they speak to you
9) You must stay in the middle aged lady stores that people your age shop in
10) You must not call me unless it is an emergency
Then she gave me her Cruelle De Vil smile and said, "Oh, Mommy....can I have more cash?" Oh, yes, here you go, and take my nice spotted dalmation skin too while I am still alive.
We got to the mall and I walked her over to where her friends were (of course, maintaining an acceptible 20 yard distance from her the entire way). Then I had to figure out what to do for the next three hours that I had to wait. Back in the day, when I was able to walk 10 steps without having chest pains and had a paycheck that was not the monetary equivalent of breakfast at Jack-in-the Box, I would be there at 6 am for the Zooper Sale specials at Liberty House and would go home when Shirokiya marked down the bentos 40%. Now, being menopausal and broke, three hours at the Mall seemed like an eternity.
So I did what I usually do when I have free time on my lonesome - went shopping for the kids and went to eat.
I ended up sitting at the bar at a new Chinese restaurant that had recently opened up at the mall. My plan was to camp out there for an hour or so, have a glass of wine and some dim sum while catching up on the avalanche of e-mail and facebook postings that I had ignored while my laptop was dead. The wine I wanted was sold out so I ordered a pot full of jasmine rose tea and some plates of vegetarisn food, and like Whitney Houston, "exhaled" - taking in the deliciousness of being alone and having no where to go and nobody to attend to.
That lasted a few minutes when an elderly gentleman was seated to my left and he turns to me and says, "Oh, is is okay if I sit next to you?". I nodded okay and turned back to my I-phone when I heard, "Have you eaten here before? I come here a lot." Now, back in the day, I would have pretended that I was a Japanese tourist who didn't speak English but that wouldn't have worked because he asked me the same questions in Japanese. So, I decided to put the phone away and have a conversation with the guy who clearly seemed to want to talk to someone.
Turned out that he was a WWII veteran who had joined the US Marines fresh off the Lakota reservation in North Dakota. He also knew a lot about the 442nd RCT. We talked a lot about military and rez life as well as the meaning of life. We had a discussion about civil unions and about where we would live if we had a choice (him - China, me - Japan). It seemed to be just minutes that we were talking but when I got a phone call from the Diva, I realized it had been about 2 hours.
So, I explained to him that I had to go and he looked me in the eye and said, "I just want to tell you that I usually do not like to talk to people at all so thank you for listening to an old man's ramblings." Took everything I had not to cry as I gave him a big hug and told him the pleasure was all mine.
The Diva asked me why I took so long and I told her about my lunch companion. She just shook her head and said, "Geez Mom, what is it with you? Are you like an old guy magnet or something?" I started to prepare a long lecture about the importance of respecting your elders - the same speech I give everytime I'm stuck at work and late to pick them up (even though they could just walk across the street to come to where I am) but then she goes, "I guess they have to talk to somebody so it's good that you listen to them and care about them because most people don't."
Backhanded complement, but I'll take it.
Sometimes, it takes a stranger to let you know that you are a pretty good person and not the totally socially awkward and fasionably retarded creature that your daughter thinks you are. But then again, sometimes even your daughter will let you know, somewhat reluctantly, that you are a good person too.
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