A Surprisingly Good Gift

Okay–so, on the surface, Mate blew off Mother’s Day. No flowers, no candy, no gift bags from the kids. The little ones brought me cards on Friday, Chicken baked a cake, and we planned to go out to eat (which we rarely do anymore) and, well, that was it. He felt bad–I got to sleep in til ten which was cool, and he cleaned out my car (a HUGE deal–it was revolting, trust me) and well I was going to call it good.

And then a curious thing happened.

You see, in many relationships there is the flake/fuck-up, and the sane normal person who puts up with the flake/fuck-up for the laughs.

I AM that flake/fuck-up. If something is going to be broken, that’s me. If someone’s going to forget a bill–hello! Right here! If someone’s going to forget the kid’s at the sitters and get halfway home before she has to turn around and get said child… uhm, you guessed it. The flake/fuck-up, lock the keys in the house/lose the work keys/wreck the car for no particular reason/loose wing-nut member of the relationship, desperately grateful for her beloved wrench to screw her back in place. (Uhm… that wasn’t wasn’t supposed to come out dirty… but, if that’s the way you want to take it? Fine.)

Anyway, to prove this, we were getting in the car, and I had a flash: After lunch we were going to go get flowers to drop off at Mate’s mom’s and my mom’s and there is NO radio reception by his mom’s, so I wanted my iPod, right? Makes sense to me, made sense to Mate. So I get to the porch, say, “Mate, keys!” And Mate throws the keys in a fine arc, over the car…

And on top of the roof.

No shit. You know the phrase “laughing my ass off?” I. WISH. Anyway, while I took MY keys out of the running car (it was in the nineties–if the kids were stuck in the car we were going to leave the a/c on) Mate got the ladder and the rake out to take care of business.

I watched him use the rake to get the keys off the roof, then hold the rake over the driveway and drop the keys and then pick up the ladder and the rake and get in the car.

Did you notice he missed a step?

He didn’t–not until we got the the restaurant and went, “Oh fuck. I forgot my keys.” And sure enough, he says they were waiting in the driveway, where he left them–we sat at the table and ate an appetizer while he went back. So. that behind us, we went on to the grocery store for flowers. We took the little kids inside and left the big kids in the car–Mate thoughtfully left the fan on when we did that, and I thought, “Well, if Mate doesn’t think that’s going to run down the battery, he probably knows.”

Last words anybody?

We had to call my brother for a jump start–which made ME feel bad. My brother’s birthday was the day before yesterday–I didn’t forget, truthfully, but I didn’t call. Honestly, Toad’s address is always so transient that while I remember him on his birthday, I don’t always have an address to call him–he’s actually staying at my parents right now, who were the people we were TRYING to get a hold of.

It was all good–I wished him happy birthday, gave him my mom’s flowers and had him bring them home so they’d be there when she got home from work. But the damage to Mate’s state of mind? Horrendous. He’d gotten into that “I’m doomed” frame of mind–which isn’t a lot of fun when you’re driving on a curvy road, trust me.

We visited his mom (nice lady), said hi to his grandma (also nice lady) and came home intact, in spite of the fact that he took a couple of curves fast enough to make all occupants but Mate blow chunks (which we didn’t. *whew*) But Mate’s funk pervaded–he wasn’t sure what happened to his mojo, but he was pretty sure he got hit by the karma train for blowing off Mother’s day.

It wasn’t until we were falling asleep that I started to giggle.

“What?” he asked grumpily.

“I figured out what your Mother’s Day gift was!”

“What’s that?”

“You got to be ME for a day!” And with that I burst into giggles and Mate started to laugh.

“You know what?” I asked.

“What?”

“Best. Gift. EVER!”