Food Fight

Begrudgingly, I took off work today while the air conditioning in my car gets fixed. It's always somewhat of a hassle when this occurs in that family members are obligated to pick me up/drop me off since the repair shop is a fair distance from my place/parents' home.

Last evening, I was in for a bit of a shock when my mom and I butted heads over cheese, or lack thereof. My mother and I have never had a close relationship. We get along for the most part, but she's never been someone I've felt I could confide in. I've always been more of a daddy's girl.

Anyway, she made hamburgers last night for dinner. I asked if we had cheese for mine, and she said, "No, so you're not getting cheese." She got really upset when I asked how it was possible to not have any cheese and told me I should've brought my own cheese if I wanted it and that I also should've brought my own laundry detergent (I was doing laundry) because it was her house and I was being a rude guest.

Fine, I know she gets like that sometimes. So I went downstairs to my old room and told her I refused to eat. She started screaming at me about how I HAD to eat because she'd made all this food and she didn't want it to go to waste. It made absolutely no sense to me. If I were such an ungrateful guest, why would she want me to eat the meal she claimed to work sooooo hard to prepare???

I told her all I wanted to do was watch Big Brother so she stood in front of the TV, arms flailing, trying to grab hold of my wrist to drag me upstairs. She said if I didn't go up and eat, then I could go home. "How am I going to get there?" I asked. "You can walk." The fight got to be more and more ridiculous by the minute. I never really swear in front of my parents, but I was super close to calling her a bitch. I held my tongue though -- she probably would have flown off the handle even moreso if that happened.

I can be stubborn, but it was easier to eat the damn food than continue fighting. Of course, I also happened to be famished.

It had been a long, long time since my mom and I fought like that, so it surprised me that, at 26, I could still get just as worked up about her as I did in the past.