I work at a movie theater, minimum wage, long hours, the usual. I make my own money, and ever since I have started getting a decent paycheck I've never really asked for a lot from my parents, I paid for choir tour fully by myself, I paid for both my AP tests, and pay for my own food and clothes. I'm not saying this for pity, people should work for their belongings, it creates character. Anyway back to the main subject of my post, if you've studied my earlier posts you've noticed that i have a weak spot for charities and humanitarianism work. A healthy obsession if you ask me. I support a website that sells clothing in order to create funds that will support humanitarian organizations all over the world, the organizations differ from providing clean water in Guatemala to liberating sex slaves in India and I'm in love with the idea. I get a fashionable shirt and the opportunity to impact a life for the better. There was a recent donation going on where the website owners were willing to donate $21 to a center for autistic children for every product sold, I bought a shirt worth $21 and therefore the amounts would cancel each other out and it would be as if I got the shirt for free.
A little information before I continue, my mother was born in Hong Kong, after getting married and giving birth to my two older sisters, our family moved to the U.S. in hopes of a better life, not to be rascist or rude in anyway, but there is only one word to describe my parents. They are FOB's, fresh off the boat, (slang Chinese Americans use to describe Chinese people just moving to the U.S.) they speak in broken English and scowl whenever either one of my sisters act too American. As if there is a thing, since we were born in America.
Now that you know a little bit more about my mother, it's back to the story again. So the shirt arrives in a bright white package, I've been at home all day and hearing word from my father that my mother is returning home from a long day at work I decide to make her a BLT sandwich. Before I'm done my mother enters through the garage door looking tired and before i can even set my beautiful BLT sandwich on the counter in front of her, she plops the package in front of me.
"What is this? Are you buying stuff from the internet? Why do you keep wasting your money on such things? Why don't you donate your money to me?? You never buy me things and yet you are buying yourself these things!..."
wait a minute...did i hear what i just thought i heard? She just asked me how dare I buy things for myself when I don't buy things for her. I guess in her mind my money never belonged to me.
I'll admit that by now I'm pretty mad, and I also admit that it is because of my short temper and the fact that I have been alone at home for ten hours with nobody talking to me and that the first hello i get is a lecture. I snap, a bad move in my direction, I tell her how I always offer to pay when we eat out and that I work for my money and she storms out, leaving my BLT cold on the counter. It's after she leaves that I realize what i have done wrong and I call her
"Yes."
"Mom?"
"..."
"I'm sorry"
"For what"
"For snapping at you, I shouldn't have done that"
"...(painfully long stretch of silence)"
"Mom?"
"Yes"
"Do you forgive me?"
"I don't know"
and then she hangs up.
...And that folks, is a lovely representation of the daily doings of my mother. The woman who gave birth to me acts like a 15 year old. The squabbles in my house usually consist of my mother and little sister arguing and guess who breaks the fight up? Me. Who mopes around the house when something doesn't go her way and when the family finally sucks up their pride and gives her what she wants she acts like she would rather die than forgive those who wronged her.
gotta love my mother.
