Maybe They're Not So Bad

When you've spend all of your previously parent-free time around those who have raised you-- like I have for the last few weeks-- you tend to forget that they can be pretty neat people. My revelation came yesterday as I was walking out of the mall with my mother, bags filled with sweaters, socks, and jeans for my stay in a cold and very wet little country. The shopping spree had ended with me tallying up a rather steep debt to my mother, who had paid for everything with the credit card. On to the bill, I added the cost of my Naots (buying Naots in the States is not cheap), my worry beads, and my passport. Since I had taken care of all of that in the previous weeks, I had assumed my mother had taken the money from my savings account. Mom needed to go to the credit union again, so I figured that she would dip into my account again to pay for the clothing I had just bought.

As we crossed the parking lot, laden with the spoils of The Gap, Mom turned to me.

"Didn't you say you were going to sign over a paycheck?"

"I did!" I exclaimed, a little miffed. "Two, in fact. I put them on your purse."

"Oh, ok. Just as long as you're contributing to all of this."

"Wait, what? Contributing? I've been telling you to take money from my account to pay for all of this." There was silence on her end. "You haven't been taking money out, have you?" The last bit was more of a statement than a question.

"Nope."

"So, you've just been paying for all of this."

"So far, yeah."

I nearly dropped the bag into a puddle. "But Mom... I told you... Well, now I feel incredibly guilty."

"We want to make sure you have everything and you never expect anything from us. So don't worry about all of this yet. We'll work it out later."

All of the crap I've been buying for this trip has cost well over $500. Not only that, in the words of Hugh Laurie, "plane tickets don't grow... on a tree" (if you haven't heard his song "Mystery," you should look that one up). Nothing has been cheap. And yet... they've taken care of me, which is incredibly sweet.

I must keep this in mind when they piss me off. :)

K.