![\"\"](\"https:\/\/annenahm.com\/anneimage\/2012\/12\/a8-300x225.jpg\" "\\"a8\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\nHOW IS THIS POSSIBLE?\u00a0 The unbroken circle of my underpants leg magically looped on this closed loop of metal wire.\u00a0 Homemade brainteaser puzzle.\u00a0 Anyway, it took two college educated adults half a day to figure out how to separate them.\u00a0 Not sure if I feel very clever or not very clever at all.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I saw my parents for the holiday.\u00a0 During dinner, my dad got pretty confused while helping my mom serve guests.<\/p>\n
He tried to give a plate of food to someone who already had one.\u00a0 For long moments after the guest explained she’d already been served, my dad stood in front of her, holding out the plate, not understanding what to do.\u00a0 There was this horribly awkward silence and people (me included) averted their eyes.\u00a0 Finally, my dad simply set the second plate down in front of the guest.\u00a0 I guess that in lieu of not being able to resolve the problem himself (e.g., if someone already has a plate, give the full plate to someone who doesn\u2019t yet have one ), he trusted what my mom had told him (e.g., please take this plate to Mrs. X).<\/p>\n
To me, it didn\u2019t seem like the same level of forgetfulness he had a year ago.\u00a0 It made me worry about what might be going on when we\u2019re not around: How could you find yourself in periods of such confusion without all this anger accumulating?\u00a0 How could you not be mad at the people who averted their eyes when you were vulnerable?\u00a0 If that was me, I\u2019d be so pissed off, and scared, and lost.\u00a0 And fuck it.\u00a0 This IS<\/strong> me, overwhelmed, pissed off, and scared by all those things.\u00a0 They\u2019re not even happening to me.<\/p>\n My mom took me shopping the next day, which is, was, and forever will be known as a huge fucking disaster.\u00a0 Every year, my mom wants to take me shopping for my birthday.\u00a0 But really, this pilgrimage between my mother and me is a fucked up catharsis in which she pretends she\u2019s forgotten that I loathe trying on clothes worse than a root canal.\u00a0 Like any ritual, it begins when she says, \u201cI want to get you something special for your birthday.\u00a0 Let\u2019s go shopping.\u201d\u00a0 And in my well-worn, online-purchased, ill-fitting clothes, it is hard to argue.\u00a0 But I do.<\/p>\n I tell her I don\u2019t want to go about five times before I give in and\u00a0 drag my ass out so she can dress me in old lady clothes that I\u2019ll never wear.\u00a0 It is my perennial Charlie Brown moment, always hoping it will go differently, that everything will fit and I won\u2019t look like I\u2019m dressed as Barbara Bush for Halloween.<\/p>\n But what happens:\u00a0 My mother leads me to Macy\u2019s\/ Chico\u2019s\/old lady boutique, and I have to look at my own naked body in fluorescent lights.\u00a0 In the dressing room, I am stripped of my notions that I am cute with a reasonably cute figure.\u00a0 In every outfit I put on, I\u2019m forced to face the fact that my arms are huge and I have cankles.\u00a0 Muffin top or swimming in a rowboat of fabric, size mammoth.\u00a0 By the tenth pair of ill-fitting jeans, I am a human whale.\u00a0 They don\u2019t even make clothes that fit my misshapen ogre ass.\u00a0 The three-way mirror assures I have piglet pink skin and a saggy double chin.\u00a0 Surely, the Most Perfect Way To Spend Your Birthday Ever.<\/p>\n By that time, I\u2019ve started crying in the dressing stall. Undeterred, my mom throws a dozen hideous outfits over the top of the door before running off again.\u00a0 I am standing in a bra and pants with the pleats blossoming out like origami balloons, waiting for her to return so I can show her I am\u00a0 having no fucking luck whatsoever.\u00a0 But she doesn\u2019t come back and I can\u2019t bear looking at myself anymore, so I peel everything off like I\u2019m some overripe banana.\u00a0 I get strangled by those invisible plastic tapes they hide inside some shirts.\u00a0 Even though I double-dosed the deodorant, I\u2019m starting to stink.\u00a0 Finally I have to scream, \u201cDo not bring another fucking thing.\u00a0 I am getting dressed and I am leaving!\u201d<\/p>\n My mother always yells back from some farthest corner of the store, \u201cJust try on those last few things!\u201d\u00a0 I wonder if perhaps I am just being an asshole.\u00a0 It\u2019s probably the delirium onset from dehydration.\u00a0 She sounds so happy!\u00a0 So I try on three more things, and they are hideous, but they were the last items on hangers.\u00a0 Daughterly duty done.<\/p>\n Gratefully yank on my own pants.\u00a0 She dumps five more outfits over the top of the door.\u00a0 And when I whimper through the slatted door: \u00a0please,dear god, I\u2019m really done,\u00a0<\/em> I hear her sigh deeply.\u00a0 She says, \u201cWell\u2026 let\u2019s at least buy all the rest of these things, and you can try them on at home, and I\u2019ll bring the ones you don\u2019t like back.\u201d<\/p>\n The sales woman\u2019s eyes light up like a jackpot.\u00a0 I can\u2019t see this happen, since I\u2019m under the avalanche of clothes inside the dressing stall, but I know they do because I can hear the ding-ding-ding coming from her ears, and the flashing lights strobe the carpet near my feet.<\/p>\n From under the hot, sweaty pile of shitty clothes, I scream, \u201cGet me the living fuck out of here!\u201d\u00a0 I can\u2019t open the door to escape because there are so many clothes shoved inside my stall.<\/p>\n My mom and the sales lady dig me out, and neither seems to understand why I refuse to let mom purchase a single item of clothing.\u00a0 The sales lady shoots daggers at me, cursing under her breath that I\u2019m such a spoiled bitch and there goes her commission.\u00a0 \u00a0I shoot daggers back \u2013 why does she think I\u2019m the kind of person who\u2019d be caught dead in a fishnet pink leisure suit?\u00a0 How about that purple\/orange houndstooth shoulder-padded nightmare?\u00a0 Lycra jeggings with booty implants?<\/p>\n