Melodrama

Today, I got an e-mail from my mom that seemed a tad melodramatic. I had casually mentioned that I had planned to visit home this year. Granted, my family back home is having a bit of a crisis with some financial trouble that my brother-in-law got in, but I'm convinced that if someone in my family had a splinter, my mother would still write me this e-mail:

Dearest,

If you plan to come home, just let us know when. It has been chaos here for all the happenings, and it is not nearing end yet. But you are always welcome to come back home. I am glad you know we can not afford to entertain you very much, but to be together again is great happiness for us already.

Dad and I are 65 years old. I hope God will take pity on us to let us not suffer more, Jon* has been trying his best to help out, it is a real consolation with him around, but it is also hard on him too.

Take care.

Love,
Mom

You know, how in old movies they used to superimpose the image of the letter writer over the reader, narrating the contents of the letter, as if the writer is standing right there? Well, as I read this e-mail, I had sort of that moment. The image of my mother in the Philippines, standing there, hands together, narrating this letter while she is wringing the blood from a chicken she had just slaughtered for dinner. Hey, this is the Philippines, you know, they have real chicken instead of the zombie chicken slurry we have here in the U.S.

I thought that if I had a child who never came home to visit, I would totally send this e-mail. I can't wait to put in my name on the list to adopt children, wait for the Supreme Court to give me the right to be a parent, raise it and then send this e-mail to him or her when they've moved out of the house.

This one is so good, it's going into my saved e-mail folder, along with the one I got from an ex-boyfriend who broke up with me, writing 'It's not you, it's me.' What? That was an apology? Of course it's you, you sniveling, egotistic asshole.

My mother, with her passion for dramatics taught me--even though she didn't know it--everything I knew about being gay and slaughtering a chicken. She even gave me this valuable tip: don't wear white after Labor Day. This tip applies to both being gay and slaughtering a chicken.

Besides, I wasn't sure what she meant by entertaining us, because I was planning to come for a vacation, not sit in a production of Hairspray. I just want to have dinner, not dinner theatre. I don't want them to put on a production for me. Granted, nothing's more interesting than watching my Dad yell at the TV with a chicken leg hanging from his mouth, but I'd rather not have to pay for it. I mean, I'm their kid, my tickets should be comped. And Ticketmaster charges exorbitant fees these days.

Anyway, I am still planning to visit as soon as I can get the money together and some time off from work. I am planning to go later this year because my parents are getting old (65!) and I would like to spend as much time as I can with them while they are still around and can teach me how to skin a cow.

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* My older brother

Letter From Home - I come across a letter from my mother which tugs at my heartstrings.