Popagandhi

My mum: “We’re going to a mountain in April, hiking to Pangkor in May, and I want to go to Taiwan in June. Do you want to come?”

Me: “Harrumph. I’m not going to be here.”

My mum: “Oh. Okay.” (_Walks away_)

Me: “Isn’t she even going to ask where I’m going, and for how long?”

We have this little competitive thing going on, and it’s most unhealthy. My mother gets jealous if I go to nicer and to more places than she does; I can’t talk about where I’ve been, what I’ve seen, how little I spent. I refuse to tell her that I’ve already booked my air ticket because she’ll be upset I didn’t ask her to come along, now that she’s ‘retired’, and I’m trying my best not to have her on the same flight as me ââ�¬â�� she travels harder than I do, and which tires me out. Consider the strange notion that the only time I’ve stayed in a dorm room, is when she insisted it was fun (Me: “It’s so dirty..”). She ended up cooking herbal chicken soup for a hostel full of backpackers in Sydney, and relishing that role. Everytime I try to start telling her a story, she covers her ears and says “nyeh nyeh nyeh I didn’t get to go don’t tell me”.

Some time later.

Me: “Aren’t you the slightest bit interested in where I’ll be this May?”

My mum: “NO I’M NOT. I don’t ask because it’ll make me jealous. So where’re you going?”

Me: “India. Nepal. And..”

My mum: “Shut up lah.”

And she goes away sulking.

At times I wonder how she comes to be seized with these brilliant ideas, which seem to appear from thin air. Like deciding to give me LASIK surgery for my eyes for my 21st birthday, because.. get this, “so that when you go to India your eyes won’t hurt so much”!