It’s been a while since I’ve shared a Prudie “snap snap”:
| Dear Prudie,
My mother does something that is most annoying to me. She gets my and my brother’s names confused. She calls me his name and him my name. My brother is 15, very immature, not so bright, lies and steals everything, and is either gay or bisexual. I am about to hit 20, very mature, very intelligent, never lie, never steal, and am straight.
I have told her time and time again to stop doing it, but she tells me that she gets our names confused because she is always around us. By the way, I personally believe that is a typical excuse by moms for not thinking before speaking. So what should I do about this? —Not Him Dear Not, Linguists call this a semantic substitution error, and calling one child the name of another is one of the most common examples of it because you both light up the neurons in your mother’s brain devoted to “son.” I understand that you think the gray matter she’s allocated to you should be clearly labeled “exemplary heterosexual person” and his should be “rotten homosexual person,” but guess what—you’re both there under “young male I gave birth to, who I’m still taking care of,” so there’s nothing to be done about these slips. If this is the worst thing your mother does, read the second letter in this column and consider what a lucky young man you are. I’ll accept your self-assessment that you’re a human paragon, but there’s perhaps one chink in your perfection: the way you treat your brother. If your description of him lying and stealing is correct, then he’s an unhappy teenage boy. Since you’re a happy one, maybe you could get off your pedestal and give your brother some thoughtful, nonjudgmental attention—which would include accepting that his being gay is nothing to be judgmental about. —Prudie |
I had a fantabulous lunch today, due to a secret ingredient. The sandwich was just my regular ham and Swiss, but instead of mayonnaise, I used a packet of Arby’s Horsey Sauce that I found in my fridge. Yum, yum, yum.
I worked out today, upping my elliptical workout almost back to my pre-hiatus days. I did 30 minutes, with resistance increases every five minutes in the first fifteen minutes, and then lowering it every five minutes in the last fifteen minutes. I burned 545 calories.
After that, I did 12 sets of 25 ab crunches on the ab machine. The last four sets were excruciating.
I wanted to get my hair cut today, but by the time I got around to it, they had closed. I thought they closed at 7:00 on Saturdays, but obviously it’s either at 6:00 or 5:00 that they close.
I went out to Flex for a little while, where it was “Silver Daddy” night—50 years and older get in free. I’ll take it as a compliment that the door guy tried to charge me, but I flashed him my 1957 driver’s license proof and sashayed right in.