Kathleen McCall:
Occasional�� Muse�

2001-04-27 - 10:51 a.m.

The Elderstentialist

In between errands, phone calls, and a few loads of wash, I'm pondering the nature of Truth this morning. One of the phone messages was from my mother.

To explain, I need to tell you a bit about dealing with my mother. Dealing with my mother is like playing the old children's party game, "Pin the Tail on the Donkey." When I start out, I've got that tail firmly in hand, and my eye fixed on that donkey's ass. By the time she gets through blindfolding me and spinning me around, I'm just as likely to stick the pin in my eye. When she gets through, I AM the donkey's ass.

But about the truth: my Mother is a Southern Lady. One thing you can count on with elderly Southern Ladies; they see The Truth as an accessory to their outfits, to be chnaged to suit the occasion. The Truth is defined as "whatever will suit my purposes". Yes, I know, some of us would call that lying, but some of us are not elderly Southern Ladies. Better to understand the concept and get on with it. The lamp oil is getting low, Diogenes.

But these days we have to put a few more ingredients into the mix: my mother has lost most of her short-term memory. She can't construct an effective Southern Truth any more, because she can't remember what it was she said yesterday, or to whom she said it. (Let this be a lesson to us all: get honest, before you get ditzy.)

And now we can add the icing: my mother is pretty much stone deaf these days. She has hearing aids, but it makes her mad that she has to wear them, and anyway she's conveniently lost them. Or so she tells me.

So when she tells me this morning that the attorney asked her to find out what the value of her house would be, I'm left pondering. Has she forgotten that I was there through the entire appointment, and I know he didn't? Or does she honestly think he did? If she does, was it something she mis-heard from deafness, or something her creative mind told her later? Or is it a convenient Southern Truth, and if so, what purpose is it serving her?

This may seem purely academic, but it's not. Because if it's something she's using to amuse herself, that's fine. But we must be aware of the possibility that the next sentence will be, "So could you please conduct a full market survey for me, because I'm an old lady and can't do it myself?" or something to that effect. And one must be prepared to respond.

I usually don't respond quickly enough, because I'm still sitting in the dirt trying to figure out which way that damn donkey went. And if you don't respond quickly enough, my mother will go on and create YOUR half of the conversation, too. "Oh, you don't WANT to do it? You don't have TIME to help your mother? Never mind, then, I'll just wither away and die all alone, I don't mind...."

Unfortunately, the half of the conversation that you didn't have becomes etched in her mind as the Truth, so you can later get enmeshed in a conversation denying that you ever had a conversation, and this is how the pin always ends up in my eye.

I don't know why I spend time trying to sort out the truth. I have a growing suspicion that I'm not going to win one of those game prizes for my party bag, anyway. In fact, I suppose I will be lucky if I can keep the rest of the guests from sticking pins in my ass. Sometimes, in complex relationships, I guess you just have to accept the end of the donkey you get assigned.

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