27
May
‘You know, at the end of the day you marry someone who has the same tastes as you.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Well, your father and I both have this laid-back, well-put-together idea of things that lands somewhere between successful redneck and underachieving oldest-child.’
‘And what does that have to do with taste?’
‘Well it informs just about everything we do or buy. You are what you consume, son. And we as a family tended to stretch our means just enough so as to appear intellectually more wealthy than we were, which in a town with the highest per capita PhD per resident for any population under 100k we needed to stretch pretty darn far.’
‘But aesthetics meant nothing to us children. I just wanted to wear what was cool. Full-zip hooded sweatshirts in 6th grade, plaid flannel in 7th, Abercrombie tees in 8th, and by 9th grade I had reliably come into my own enough to not give a shit whether I wore men or women’s jeans.’
‘I noticed that.’
‘Notwithstanding, I didn’t care what car I drove or shoes I wore so long as they got me to where I needed to be.’
‘But you just mentioned a car and wanting to wear a new style of attire for every grade. That wasn’t cheap.’
‘I tried so hard to not burden you. I still remember requesting $9 Walmart shoes for either 4th or 5th grade and them disintegrating to such an extent I needed a second pair of new shoes before the semester was up. That hurt me deeply. Here I was forgoing the pressure of social stigma in order for my parents to survive the recession and then my resourcefulness ends up costing double. I never forgot that lesson.’
‘Oh? That’s why you drive a Toyota?’
‘Dependability and longevity are important to me.’
‘So give yourself some leeway.’
‘She never did.’
‘That’s why you’re not together anymore.’
‘I thought she was the one. And then I didn’t.’
‘The body is pretty remarkable at detecting foreign invaders.’
‘Ha hah. You’re saying she was alien?’
‘She never did strike me as having a human brain.’
‘Oh God, that’s mean Mom.’
‘Sorry! I want what’s best for my children and a mother can smell the stink of insolvency.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘Yeah, unfortunately I do.’