I Got It From My Mama

Like most women my age [and older], I like to pretend that my tendencies to do certain things have no connection at all to my mother's personality. Say things just like my mom? Oh, what a coincidence. Do things exactly like my mom? She must have picked it up around the same time as me. Get angry at the same things that anger my mom? Who knows how that happened. As most other people know, the phrase "You are just like your mother" is one of the most angering things that can be said to a woman. We can't, of course, be like that person who frustrated us all these years, who want us to call when we make it home, who fix our hair and nix our clothing options and tell us to put on some damned pantyhose when we don't want to put on any fucking pantyhose.

So, two weeks ago, I went to Target. While I was checking out, I noticed the extra-special Breast Cancer Awareness super-awesome pink M&Ms. I don't know about you, but I believe that breast cancer awareness is an excellent excuse to buy M&Ms [and a lovely ploy that makes October an especially profitable month for many companies, I'm sure]. So I bought the pink M&Ms, and I opened them in the car.

As can be expected, though, I didn't just open them. Appropriately, the bag shot open and a small torrential downpour of M&Ms hit my seat. The bag was ripped more than halfway open, which was a wonderful excuse to eat all of the M&Ms below the tear line, so that the remaining ones didn't spill.

Well, eventually I got home, and I went to take my purchases in the house. I didn't want my wide-open M&M bag to spill in a grocery bag, so I somehow decided that it would be a better decision to put it in my purse. Of course, when I got inside, a large number of M&Ms had spilled in my bag. Not wanting those to go to waste, I sat on the couch for some number of minutes, checking my email and eating the superficial layer of M&Ms [read: the ones not in the dirty crap in the far recesses of my purse].

Flash forward to last weekend.

My family, all 7 of us, plus my boyfriend and an aunt and an uncle, were all jammed into my grandparents' conversion van, driving from Asheville--where my mom's van broke down--to home. 20-year-old Jim was refusing to share with 8-year-old Jessie the stash of candy he had pilfered from our cousin's Halloween-themed wedding.

Of course, it wasn't long before my mom had a revelation. "You know what I have, Jessie?" she said. "M&Ms!"

Without another word, my mother reached down into her purse and pulled out a handful of pink M&Ms. As she handed them to the now-mollified Jessie, there was no doubt in my mind that genes exist, and that they are taking over my life.