Mother Poker

It’s predictable, it’s cliché, but I’m here to whine about Mothers’ Day

Well, the night before I went to karaoke, which was the most epic fun I’ve had in ages.  So many good things about it… but I have to save that one until I get the photos because there’s one photo in particular that I’m excited to unleash on the internets.

So instead I get to focus on the day after.  I did manage to get 4 hours sleep in, so I was feeling fine and anticipating lots of delicious food that I don’t have to pay for.  We went to a posh pub on the North Shore.  We being my brothers, my sister, Jones, the Palex, my mum and my Grandma.  

My grandma is hecticly Catholic and last time my mum got a divorce, my late grandfather banished us from the family for many years. So it was very lulzy to watch my mum make up an excuse for why my step-dad wasn’t at lunch.  It’s a wonderful precedent, because now I think she can’t really blame me for hiding things about my private life which don’t gel with her value system.  

Anyway, I was really banking on my siblings’ hilarity to make the day fun, but it wasn’t happening.  As soon as lunch was scoffed down, they were off to the pokies.  I was enjoying bitching about it to my sister until my mum came back from the pokies and told me to go sit with my Grandma.   Not just sit with her, but take turns with her pressing the button on the stupid goddamn poker machine.  No, I wouldn’t get any of the winnings, I would just press the button, wait for her to press the button, press it again, watch $50 being whittled away.  Fuck that.

So I sat with my grandma, who coincidentally has the same colour hair as me (ie: purple, only hers is a different shade and I don’t think I’m supposed to call it purple, but whatever.  She’s literally one of the blue rinse set.) and we had almost no conversation.  It was like "hmmm… if only they’d give me more features… I’d get better winnings",  "Yep….   if they let you win, you’d get more money back. But they don’t. The dirty bastards."   I think I had more intelligent conversation with my paternal grandmother the other weekend, even though she’s so Alzheimic she’s forgetting how to swallow food. 

I just can’t get along with the elderly, no matter how hard I try to find something endearing about them.  I know I’m drawing a grossly unfair attitude from a shitty premise, but between compulsive gambling and talk back radio, I feel strong violent urges towards them.   They complain about the old age pension being inadequate, which is probably true, but I can’t help think of all the old people constantly sitting at those machines, clicking away the money they supposedly don’t have for groceries 10 lines at a time.  I hate them.

So after I finally escaped my grandmother,  I sat discussing Eminem with my eldest younger brother.  My brothers were trying to formulate an escape plan, but decided that my mum would make hell for them if I did.  I found it funny that now we’re older, we can openly make reference to things like our mother’s tyrrany.  Growing up is awesome because of stuff like that. 

I didn’t want the Palex to get me a present, but preschool gave him some random body lotion thing to wrap and he stuck a poem to a card.  It was pretty cute, especially when he explained before I opened it that it would make my hands soft. The only douchebag things he does are misbehave in restaurants and announce all his farts as they happen.  Otherwise, he owns all these idiots.   The other day, Jones walked in on him bashing chords on his keyboards, chanting "motherfucker… motherfucker…"   I know, how cool is that!