Giving you the slip

My Mother has been trying to justify her packing for this trip to San Diego all day. As I mentioned before, she brought nothing but pants and then two slips, which are largely useless given she brought no skirts or dresses that would necessitate such under-things.

My sister and I have been suggesting uses for the slips...wind socks...buffers for the corner of the coffee table (since a few of us bear bruises from unplanned contact with the sharp edges)...a fetching sarong for my Father as he gets out of the pool. Dad even offered to wear them on his head as sun protection. But Mom ignored such remarks, stating that she needs only a trip to Eileen Fisher to solve the problem of the slips...she will then shop for a skirt, thereby putting the slips to use, saving them from sitting dejectedly in her suitcase all week.

"But I WANTED to shop!" she told us this morning in an attempt to justify the slips. This statement would be easier to believe if any of us three girls that sprang from her loins actually enjoyed the task of shopping. For us, it is a task to be endured. We shop solo, quickly and with a goal in mind. We all like HAVING clothes, but the hunting/gathering part is akin to getting a colonoscopy. We have faulty, female DNA, and that's that.

I suggested that perhaps we should be daring and try something other than Eileen Fisher, perhaps a designer that encouraged waistlines and used darts that would offer a shape other than BOXY. We were passing by a Banana Republic at that moment and Mom said "Do they have skirts in here?"

"Of course!" I replied, "Some pretty ones that come down to the knee!"

"OH NO! They HAVE to come down to almost my ankle" she said in horror, imagining, I'm sure, some local boys suddenly succumbing to immoral behavior at the glimpse of her calf. "Yes, Mom, someone might have SEX if they see even a HINT of your leg!" I said in mock terror.

She smacked me across the arm, blushing at the mention of "sex" and I thought how funny it is that two people, one as conservative as my Mother and the other as laid back as my Dad came up with children who are such various combinations of the two of them. While none of us shrink as violently as she does from bedroom talk, we do have the tendency to be too open with our opinions, laugh easily at others, are fluent in sarcasm, are forgetful and are all prone to justifying our bad behavior.

At least it's nice to know we have two people we can point at and go "It's THEIR fault I'm like this!" though, I wouldn't have it any other way. I'll take the crazy bits since I'm fortunate to love those who gave them to me. I'm lucky.