Time for a Quickie?

Some days, the phone rings right about lunchtime, just as I’m getting out a plate and starting to make lunch or right when my leftovers have been warmed to gooey perfection and I’ve sunk my fork in for the first bite.

Rrrrriiiiiiing!

I know who it is. The conversation often goes something like this:

“It’s your Mu-THER,” the voice on the other end sings.

“Yes, it is,” I say.

She calls on her lunch hour from work. I watch as my lunch grows cold and stiff. My stomach growls like a ravenous bear waking from its winter nap.

She wants to know what I’m doing.

“Eating lunch,” I say.

“Well I won’t keep ya.” Then she chats for a bit, and then she wants to know if my husband is coming home for lunch. He often does.

So the other day, she said, “Gosh, Karen. Y’all could have a quickie at lunch.”

No. She. Didn’t. I could have thrown up the empty contents of my stomach. Just ew. It was quiet on my end. My mind goes blank from there. We must have hung up quickly.

I relayed the conversation to my husband. “You should have asked if that’s what she and your dad did,” he said.

“Gross! She would have told me. I don’t want to know about that!”

“Then you should have told her we were,” he said.

“Then she would have asked about it or something,” I said, still trying to shake the horrible sentence from my head.

Mothers and daughters and talk about a lunchtime quickie do not mix. If I hear the word sex from my mom’s mouth, I revert to teenhood when I prayed she wouldn’t bring it up. I pretended not to know about it and I pretended parents never did it. Approaching 40, my mindset hasn’t changed, and if the conversation comes up, I must fight my gag reflex, put hands over ears, and scream “la la la la la la la la la la la” at the top of my lungs. Just ew.

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13 Comments

Filed under Can't Get a Break, Everyday Life

13 responses to “Time for a Quickie?

  1. Lisa

    That was more than I wanted to read – yuck! haha Just think, in a couple more years your kids will think the same of you and your husband as you do your parents. 🙂

  2. I can SO relate! There’s definitely a fine line with being extremely open with your parents (particularly your mom) and going too far and it doesn’t matter how old you are. 20, 30, 40 – still not ok.

  3. I am the same way as you are with my mom. Some topics just should not be discussed and sex it right up there at the top. Just wrong and nasty.

  4. My 21 year old daughter is the same way – you’d think the stork brought her, but I guess if my mom brought up sex, I would have a hard time with it, too.

    • I don’t know why it’s like that. I mean, we’re all adult. I guess with your parents it’s taboo for so long, you never really outgrow it. Maybe it’s the imagery!

  5. Oh, ugh! I can relate! The thought of my mom saying something like that makes me feel all flittery, like I might pass out. I keep trying to convince myself that my parents have no idea how their grandkids got here, but it’s tricky. I think they might suspect…

  6. I liked your hubby’s responses !

  7. Your Mom sounds delightful!
    At least she’s still “active” at her age! That’s good news for you and your husband down the road, right?
    “Keep the home fires burnin’ and you’ll be all right”, right?

  8. Nancy simmons

    Now I know why your mom kept coming in late from her lunch hour when we worked together.

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