Quirky

"How am I supposed to explain my mother to you in ten or twelve minutes?" Charlotte asked Alexandra, knowing full well that Alex's husband would be home at 7:30 a.m. from his night shift. Bruce would want to have sex with Alex on the kitchen table again. Charlotte would leave before that happened, she decided.

"Give me the Cliffs' Notes version," replied Alex with a hearty, bosom-y laugh.

"Impossible. The other day, she called me on the phone to tell me that Daddy had been sick in the emergency room. Got violently ill after having a skin cancer removed. Went on and on about how all the neighbors were coming over after Dad passed out, told me all this stuff about Hilda Hooper across the street, all while Dad is lying on the sofa passed out. God knows who these people are. Here I am, thinking my father's about to die, and Mom's telling me about the neighbors and their personal issues. So I think, 'Get to the point, Mother,' and finally, fifteen minutes later, after being walked through every pain-staking event of her day, she says Daddy's going to be all right. An allergic reaction from the antibiotic they gave him."

"She could've said that in four seconds. 'Daddy had a skin cancer removed, had a reaction to the antibiotic, was rushed the hospital, is being treated, will be fine.' End of story."

"Rose Nylund on 'The Golden Girls' told less tedious stories. And hers were funny. That's the difference. If you ask my mother what time it is, she'll build you a Swiss village."

"What does she look like?"

"Rotund and fat. Wasn't always that way. She's almost 84. She blames me for her weight gain when I became a militant dyke. moved to Vermont, and drove a Subaru in Birkenstocks. You get the picture. But I worry about her. She controls Daddy and my brothers too much. Why, in a family of five boys and one girl, our toilet seats were always down. Imagine that -- six men, two women, and she trained every one of us, my father included, to leave the toilet seat down."

"How ladylike!" Alex said.

"You've got two minutes to prepare yourself for sex on the kitchen table with Bruce."

"Oh, Charlotte!"

"Oh, Alex! But I'm leaving before he comes home. I got turned off by boys by catching my brothers masturbating one too many times."

The door opened. It was Bruce.

"That's my cue to leave," Charlotte said, eyeing the kitchen table. "Have fun."