Thursday, May 19, 2005

Mashed Potatoes

When I was about 4 months pregnant with my first child my mother had to have surgery. She would be recovering for about 8 weeks. My sister and I decided to bless our mother by cleaning her entire house so she could fully relax during her recovery. We started out very enthusiastically, dividing up the various chores. Being pregnant, I was picking things that did not involve any heavy lifting. I confidently picked the refrigerator. I started in and on the advice of my sister I was throwing everything out. My sister would be ccoking for my mother for the duration so she really didn't need anything. I'm plugging along, trying not to think too much about what I was doing because I was still a little morning-sickness-ish. So we're talking and cleaning and talking and cleaning. As I think back I'm not sure what made me look under the foil. I've always been a little curious, perhaps nosy, but none the less I tempted fate. As I lifted the foil I'm not sure what hit me first, the smell, or the sight of the black fuzzy stuff in the Tupperware. All sorts of thoughts were flooding my mind. I was checking my food database for black+fuzzy+stinky=? Yea, I got nothing. This is where the big blue screen should have popped up reading FATAL ERROR. "Hey mom, what's this"?. she swings around, scrunches up her face, I can see her scanning the database....she's definitely not recognizing the food but slight recognition of the bowl. Yes, she has it.."mashed potatoes". It took a minute for it to go from my ears, to my brain, and right to the back of my throat. I swallowed hard...I could hear myself say in my head "go to your happy place..go to your happy place". Do the words quit while your ahead mean anything to you? I know I said this, but I can't for the life of me figure out why "How old are they"? She sort of tilted her head, looked at the ceiling and said "Thanksgiving". I looked at my sister and she looked at me and we both said at the same time "Thanksgiving"? Did I mention it was now the middle of June? Yea, that's all it took. This time, it went from my ears, straight to my stomach. There was no place happy enough to cover this one. All I know is my sister had another big mess to clean up off the kitchen floor and I got to sit on the couch and supervise the rest of the day.