My parents used to do this thing every night at the dinner table. When my dad came home the family went into assigned roles. He walked in and the serving dishes keeping warm in the oven were carried into the dining room that had already been set by anyone my mom found watching TV. Watching TV was one of the lowest forms of existing. We were made to feel guilty about such an indulgence while there are soldiers fighting a war for their country.
If we were going to indulge in the Brady Bunch or Hogan’s Heroes we had to wrap bandages for the troops from long strips of ripped sheets. My mother was a nurse in the Air Force when she met my dad. I don’t know how she got involved in the bandage business but she had the bandage roller that she taught us how to use. We’d hold it between our legs while watching Marcia freak out about her prom date and dutifully wrap bandages. If we could get four or five bandages rolled during a half-hour show our guilt for TV viewing was waived.
The dinner conversation was not exactly a conversation. It was not a time when everyone spoke at once and talked about what happened at school. My father would speak. My mother would listen. The seven kids at their elbows would sit quietly and eat everything on our plates because children on the other side of the world have nothing.
Dinnertime was my Dad’s time to unwind about his stressful day trying to keep a 50-bed hospital afloat in one of the poorest counties in upstate New York during the Carter years. When Carter came on our tiny 8” color Sony TV to give a State of the Union address, my Dad would say, “I can never understand a word he says.” I had no idea my Dad was a Republican. I thought he just didn’t like Southerners.
My Dad used dinnertime to get the problems of his day off his chest. No one else spoke. My mom’s job was to listen and the kids’ job was to remain silent, eat everything on our plate and clear the table. Whoever made the meal didn’t have to clean it up.
I remember looking at my Mom and thinking, You’re not even listening, are you? She had this glazed over expression on her face. My dad was so involved in his story. He never noticed. His stories didn’t require any questions or clarification or uh-huhs. For all we knew she was thinking, I overcooked these carrots or I can’t believe no one has noticed that these meatballs are half soy. Maybe tomorrow night I can make the meatless meatloaf and get away with it.
I hated dinnertime. I would crack wiseass comments and interrupt and occasionally be backhanded if I was within reach of my father and my joke crossed a line. My sisters would try not to laugh. I could always count on my sister Tricia to lose it. Milk would shoot out her nose or she’d start choking on her corn. I’d get kicked under the table by Cindy, the oldest, who was our substitute mom when mom checked out. If Tricia shot milk out of her nose I’d get backhanded. So she tried not to take a sip of her Carnation instant milk when I was ramping up.
My mom didn’t splurge and get the store bought milk unless we had company. Even then she would mix it with her instant milk to make it stretch farther. If my cousin, John the Picky Eater, questioned what was in his cup she’d say, “It’s store bought plus!” You’d have to be some pretty important company if my mom didn’t dilute the store bought. When my mom wasn’t looking we would grab the carton from its hiding spot in the back of the fridge and sneak my cousin John the store bought milk. We’d whisper to him, “Don’t tell anyone!”
We never wanted to have friends over for dinner because my mom liked to experiment in the kitchen with different recipes. She was the Ingredients Substitution Queen. You never knew what you were eating. We would beg her to please, just make hamburgers when our friends came over. She couldn’t help herself. The burgers would be 100% beef but the dessert had tiny chunks of broccoli in it that no amount of brewer’s yeast could disguise. She thinks of meals in terms of carbohydrates and protein and ruffage.
I am failing terribly at being just like my mother. Right after Skye and I got married she gave me the talk. The this is what your role is talk. I got nervous. I thought she was going to have the sex talk with me. I will die if my mom gives me the sex talk. Would she try to use slang? I wondered. She confides in me her best advice on a healthy marriage. “Now, Amy, when he comes home from work, he’s going to need to talk about his day and you’re going to have to listen. He’s going to need that.”
I told this to Skye and he looked at me with the same expression he gives me when I say after we’ve just finished dinner, “Whoever cooked the meal doesn’t have to clean up.” He doesn’t know the roles. He doesn’t see the difference between eating dinner at the table or eating it in front of the TV. He might roll in at 5:30. He might roll in at 9:00 pm. He might have committed the ultimate loathsome act of picking up a burger on the way home. I’m like, “What??!!” How could you do that? I’ve got an entire meal I’ve been keeping warm in serving dishes in the oven? The table is set for four!”
He just wants to veg out when he walks in the door. We compromise. He sits at the table in front of an empty plate and we listen to the kids tell us about the funny things that happened at school. When they run out of things to talk about we talk about politics or heat transfer or satellites or renewable energy or video games for which the boys have no guilt playing way too often while there are hungry children fighting wars on the other side of the world.
My husband is not talking about his day. The boys are not silently eating all the vegetables on their plates, sipping instant milk. I am right there. Present. Refilling cups with untainted milk directly out of the carton. Listening. Until the conversation shifts to video games. And then it happens. The turning-into-Mom-vortex overpowers my will to remain conscious. The boys get two sentences into the topic of video games and I can’t even uh-huh them. I am completely checked out at the mention of Halo 3, stirring my broccoli, wondering if I oversteamed it by one minute or two or if anybody will notice the ground up almonds in the apple pie. Growing boys need their protein. They can’t fill up on carbohydrates.
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