I think my mother is mocking me.
You see, I went to her blog today and read her entry about her new grandson, Daniel. It started out innocent enough but then she made the following comment… “What is special about Dan and Suzy is that they know how to work together.”
To the untrained eye, this may appear to be an entry about my sister and her husband. I, however, know that this comment is directed at Kevin and myself. Do not let the use of proper names fool you.
You see, my mother has witnessed what happens when Kevin and I try to work together. It’s like watching a bad comedy skit where two people try to walk through the door at the same time over and over again and are continually baffled that they can’t get through and neither person is willing to let the other go first. That is exactly what happens to us. Each wants to lead and each gives the other’s ideas/plan no credit whatsoever. It is so pathetic it is funny.
Long long ago when I was living in my little apartment, my mom came up to visit. Kevin came up for the weekend to hang out with us as well. During this time, I noticed that my toilet was continually running. The seal inside the tank had gotten old and wasn’t settling properly so we stopped at the store and picked up a replacement part. What follows could easily have been an episode of some comedy sitcom except it was really happening to me, and so, it wasn’t quite so funny.
Here’s the scene…. Kevin & I are crammed into my apartment bathroom with the toilet tank open, peering into its watery depth. My mother is sitting on the sofa listening to our conversation and, I’m sure, choking on her laughter.
“I think we have to remove that plastic thing and attach the new seal to this chain here.” I state dictatorially to Kevin who only hears the phrase “I think..” and they blots out the rest because he is too busy fiddling with the new seal and he secretly believes that I know nothing about plumbing so why should he listen to my amateur opinion. As I reach for said chain, he stops me by saying, “Wait! What are you doing! Why are you going to remove the chain!?”
“I just told you,” I reply unhappily, my hand submerged in icky toilet water. “I think we should remove the plastic thing….” My thought is cut off in mid-sentence.
“No, no the plastic is what holds the seal in place. If you mess with you’ll ruin everything.” Kevin replies angrily.
“How do you know?” I quip back. “It looks like the new part already has the plastic part attached.”
“Fine, do it, but you’re going to ruin it.” He grumbles in disgust. This sort of banter continues for at least 40 minutes punctuated by frequent flashing of the toilet to test if the new seal is working. Its not. So we take turns trying to fix it since we cannot agree on a plan of attack. I’m sure it has to do with the length of the chain so I will adjust the chain shorter. Kevin will snort in disgust and say, “that won’t make a difference.” I will throw him a sneer and flush the toilet. We both wait for the bowl to empty, refill, and begin running at which point Kevin will give me an I Told You So look and push me out of the way. He’ll play with the plastic thingy and try a flush. We’ll wait and watch the water empty, refill, and continue to run so I’ll push him out of the way and try lengthening the chain this time. Flush, fill, run. Kevin fiddles. Flush, fill, run. I fiddle. Flush, fill, run. All the while we are bickering back and forth. At some point, we realize the futility of our mission and decide to follow the directions which finally allows us to complete the installation. Of course, at this point we are not speaking to each other but my mother is laughing like crazy on the sofa.
Now if this is how we approach the toilet, imagine a small child. It makes me shudder. And people ask us why we haven’t had kids yet. Um, hello! You have obviously not seen us work together. We’d be luck to get diapers on the kid without some major argument about how to properly angle to sticky tape so as to achieve maximum stickiness without cutting off circulation to the child’s lower torso. Lets just say we have our hands full trying to figure out whose method for getting the cats into their carrying cage is best. We’re not ready to take on the issues involved with another human.
So mom, I’m on to you. Don’t be thinking you can pull a fast one past me!