Needless to say nothing about this day was comforting with him gone and me left rather defenseless with his younger sister and mother. I will be brief for unlike last night, I actually wish to escape into oblivion tonight.
First, his mother was actually on time. That alone made me nervous. It wasn't that I wasn't ready for her it was just that no one in my family, especially a woman, is ever anywhere on time despite our best intentions. No one. Second thing that put me a little on edge was how excited both women were to see me. Whenever anyone is that chipper (and they hadn't had their sangrias yet), it tends to make me shy away. While the drive over to the mall in Cool Springs was rather uneventful, we did pass several houses and we all ooo-ed and aaaahhh-ed over some of their architectual detail. I found myself easing into it a little as they dropped the volume of their tone a few notches and settled in for the twenty minute drive. At one point I made a comment about how I wanted a house with a lot of land around it and his mother said something to the effect of, 'Well, I hope you're marrying a millionaire then.' I bit my tongue and didn't say what I was thinking - 'No, I'm just marrying your son.'
We spent the rest of the ride after that comment discussing room designs and open floor concepts.
When we sat down to lunch - and I'm still not sure how we got on to this subject but I can almost garauntee that this time, it actually wasn't me - we began discussing weddings. I remember his mother asking me where I wanted to get married and I told her the truth, that I wanted to be married outside. I mentioned to her that my mother had found a dress for me that she thinks would be perfect for my wedding dress and then I pulled it up on my iPod to show them. They agreed and said it was very fitting. A few bites of bread were taken. We started discussing something else but then were almost immediately back on the fact that the cake I wanted was a pillow design with a thistle and some rings instead of a traditional three-tiered cake. It continued down hill from there - and I say down not because it was bad but just because it snowballed. Sometimes I felt like they understood that I was going to marry him and at other times I felt like his mother would hear a detail (that he and I had discussed and agreed upon) and there would be this dismissal like I wasn't ever going to marry him because of whatever I had said in response to her probing.
The shopping trip went much the same way. Dishes, patterns, plates, food, and every topic they could think of was touched upon, even the fact that I am considering breast reduction when his mother insisted (well, the saleslady convinced her) that I should be fitted for a bra and that a good bra would cure all back problems I was complaining of. Bullshit.
Anyways, it's as the saying goes - nobody suspects the Spanish Inquisition!
At least I think at one point I drove the point of my permanency home to them... His mother was explaining something to me, a term that she had used - thunder pup. Someone young who had a lot of ideas of how things should be done and was very set on these ideas. It was a term from a book she was (or still is) reading. She used this term to describe her son and used an example I had almost heard him use. Apparently, according to her, he wanted his wife barefoot and pregnant. I just smiled rather serenely and told her that I thought I could manage that.
What a day... It is a relief to be home and to be silent for a little while. Even if I am guilty of buying a dress and tank tops that I didn't need with money that wasn't really mine to begin with and probably saying things that I shouldn't have, today wasn't as terrible as I had feared - and yet, in a way, it was worse. Oh well.
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