It all started with an innocent thought – I think I’ll call home. I hadn’t spoken to my parents for over a week so I was pretty much due to pick up the phone and give them a holler. At the same time I was cooking dinner on our new stove while Angela was putting magnets on our new stainless steel fridge. I decided I’d be a smartass.

/me picks up phone and dials

Me: Hi, Mom.
Mom: Hey, boy! What are you doing?

Let me take a moment here to explain that I’m 36 years old and my parents, bless them, are in their 60’s. I’ve been married twice, divorced once, gone to college, been relatively successful professionally and yet they still refer to me as ‘boy’. Sometimes I think that they’ve forgotten my name and rather then try to recall what it is they just apply a generic label to me. The next time they visit I’m going to put post it notes on stuff all over the house with the object’s name on it. Table. Chair. Dog. Cat. Wife. Me? I suppose I’ll still be ‘boy’.

Me: Nothing. I just thought I’d give you a call since we haven’t spoken for a while.
Mom: Oh, that’s nice. What’s going on?
Me: I’m leaving Angela…
Mom: What?!
Me: …in front of the new fridge while I go stand in front of our new stove to cook!

I guess my comedic pause after “I’m leaving Angela” didn’t go over so well with Mom. Why? She didn’t hear anything else after I said that. Did I get reamed. Immediately my mom called me an idiot and then said “PUT ANGELA ON THE PHONE”, which lead to a good 15 minutes of my mom reaffirming that

1. everything is fine between me and my wife and
2. Angela married a nincompoop.

Ok, I’m sugar coating that one. I do believe my mom’s exact words were “He’s an asshole”. She said she was about to have a heart attack and that she almost fell to her knees after hearing the news. Maybe I am an asshole. I thought it was funny picturing her pulling a Fred Sanford from Sanford & Sons.

And people ask why I don’t want to have kids.