Your Girlfriend is Ugly

Overheard in the 'burbs: Easter Weekend Edition

Friday: "But I gave birth to you for Christ's sake!"

On Friday evening around 7:50pm I walked into the family room where my parents were to alert The Donna that we should probably saddle up and hit the road to go pick up my sister Shana who was arriving at Rt. 128 station from New York.

My dad was watching some sort of program on the History Channel and The Donna was sitting on the couch snapping the ends off of 78 pounds of raw green beans. In between beheading the beans she was popping jelly beans into her mouth. Earlier that day I was putzing around CVS and decided to buy my mom some of her favorite candy.

"Mum we should probably get going."

"Leeeee-SAH these jelly beans suck."

"Um. Sorry...?"

"No thea wicked hahd."

I grabbed one and chewed on it. No unusual consistency to be found.

"Mum they're fine. If you want something soft to chew on eat one of these." I chucked the Swedish Fish bag at her and gestured that we needed to make a move.

"No Leee-SAH seriously. Hea..."

I then watched as my mother removed the half masticated jelly bean from her mouth and waved it in my face.

"Hea try this."

"I am NOT eating that!"

"Fa God's sake I gave birth to you!"

"And.."

"Hea eat it. Tell me it's not wicked hahd."

"Mum get outta here! Would you eat the jelly bean in my mouth???" I grabbed the half eaten green one and pressed it between my fingers.

To my surprise The Donna went for it!

"MUM!!! GROSS!!!" I shoved the bean back in my mouth. "Can we go please."

"Fine. But I don't know what you're freaking out about. I gave birth to you."

"Yes you said that. Come on we're going to be late."

Sunday afternoon: "I only like Wheel of Fortune."

For Easter we had my cousin Pam and Charles over with two of their three boys, Ben and Matt and my dad's older sister Aunt Nancy.

We were all sitting around the table drinking coffee and having pound cake when Pam (who is no stranger to my tales of waxing) asked what we all did last night

"Shana and I just hung out and watched a movie."

"Yeah," my dad grumbled, "Donna and I watched a movie too. Slumdog Millionaire. It SUCKED."

"Dad! How can you say that? It was soooo good! And it won like every award so at the very least you can appreciate it."

"I haven't seen it yet," said Pam.

"It flashes back a lot and Donna and I were just kind of confused."

"You have to pay attention," I explained to him. "Maybe you should watch it again."

"No. Oooooooh no."

"I don't think it was the right movie for mom and dad," said my sister. (What would be the right movie for my parents??)

My dad continued, "Plus it was about a game show. And I hate game shows."

"It was not about a game show dad."

"Well it sort of was. I'm not big on game shows. I mean I like a good episode of Wheel of Fortune but that's about it"

Sunday late afternoon before dinner: And the brutality just keeps on comin'

There are a handful of topics that are off limits for discussion during family functions. Two of the main ones are politics and the Massachusetts school system. My mother is very active in my towns school committee and talking about it boils her blood. And she has high blood-pressure. So we put these restrictions in place to keep The Donna alive.

Well somewhere in between the cheese ball and the Mets game the topic of schools came up. Pam is a math teacher in Mass so she and my mom were talking. Then I hear Pam tell my mom that they are going to start putting the BMI of kids on their report cards.

"Ah you serious Pam?" said The Donna.

"Yup. Now the school is responsible if your kid is fat," replied Pam.

My Aunt Nancy then turned to me and said, "Lisa you must be glad you're not in school any more huh?"

When the left I took my sister to the train, came home and immediately did my Tank Top Arms and Boy Short Bottom work out DVD.

How did you spend your Easter evening?

* * *

When's the next holiday?

Happenings at Home: Keep your comps close and your mother closer.

This past weekend my sister was home in Mass visiting. We work for the same company but in different capacities; her office is in New York and I'm in Boston. On Friday she had to attend a photo shoot and some of the products had to be mocked up or "comped" as we creative people say in the industry. The plan was to get the products shot and then my sister would take them with her to the left coast for a really big meeting she has this week with a company that rhymes with Plethora.

Friday evening my sister had plans so I took the comps with me and met my mother for dinner.

"What ah those?" The Donna asked.

"They are comps mom."

She sized the bag up like it was a Stella D'Oro cookie then replied, "Oh."

That was the end of our conversation. We proceeded to do some light shopping that evening and then went home, ate salads and watched Tropic Thunder.

That Saturday morning I woke up at 11:45 (in the six weeks since I have moved back home I have not slept passed 10. Even I was horrified that I slept so late) and heard my sister say to my mother, "Oh, Lisa gave you a pink makeup bag?"  The pink makeup bag was in the bag of comps I brought home.

"Umm...No.." replied my mother hastily.

"Lisa?"

"What?"

My sister came bombing downstairs into my room.

"Where are the comps?"

"They were on the sewing table."

We both looked at the sewing table. No bag of comps.

"Mom. Where are the comps??"

"Oh. Well I threw them away."

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"Uh. Why would you do that?"

"Well I thought they were freebies so I took the bag and threw the rest of the stuff away." (One thing you have to picture is that the two makeup bags had paper sleeves around them that were part of the presentation. My sister and I later compared notes of what was going through our heads at the time and we were both sure that The Donna had ripped the sleeves to shreds before tossing them into the garbage.)

"Mom! They were comps! Shana needs those for her meeting."

"Yeah. I thought comp meant I could have them."

"No. Comp does not equal free."

"But you said they were mock-ups."

"That doesn't equal free either!"

"Oh," she replied busting into giggles.

The Donna then proceeded to rifle through the downstairs trash until she resurrected every comp/mock-up that had been unceremoniously tossed away. Both of the paper sleeves were still in tact and nothing was damaged. Although one of the tubes did have some Swiffer Wet Jet juice on it but no comps were seriously injured.