Monday, October 17, 2005

You Can't Go Home Again

There's a weird thing that happens after you move out of your parents house: it's not your house anymore.

This may seem completely obvious to most of you, but for me it's a shock every time I walk into my parents house. It doesn't help that they moved last year and it's not even the same HOUSE I grew up in. Some things that I noticed when I was staying at my dad's this weekend to illustrate my point:

1. In all the long years I've been making pies with my dad, I've never had to go on a scavenger hunt in the kitchen to do it. "Where's the flour?" I had to ask him. Because I didn't know. I didn't even know where to begin. This was quickly followed by "Where's the mixing bowls?", "Where's the measuring spoons?", "Where's the rolling pin?", "Where are the pie pans?" and "Where's the plastic wrap?" I only knew where the forks were because of a previous trip. And also, what the hell are these glasses? I've never seen these things before in my life.

2. There's nothing to eat in the house. I mean, there's things to eat, but they aren't the things that WE ate. When we were a family and everyone lived there. For starters there is no milk. None. These are the people (or person, I guess my stepmom wasn't there yet) who had me drink a glass of milk every single time I sat down for a meal. The only time I was offered a beverage that was not milk was when we had pizza, at which time we were granted the great privilege of having actual Coca-Cola with our meal. We had one pint of Coke in the house at any given time, compared to at least two gallons of milk. Now there is no milk. Come to thing of it, there's no Coke either. What exactly do these people drink? All I see is a bottle of wine. Are they having this with their breakfast? I just don't know.

Also I can't find anything to snack on. My memory insists that there was once a perpetual box of Snyders of Hanover sourdough pretzels in the house. Also there were some type of home made baked goods available in the cookie jar or on top of the fridge at all times. I looked in the pantry. Ingredients for actual meal type items and a container of almonds smiled back at me. It's not that I'm expecting everyone to cater to my needs just because I showed up; I'm more than happy to go to the store and get my own junk food. It's just that, I mean, what do these people eat all day? I'm confused.

3. You cannot, CANNOT masturbate at your parents house after you've moved out. Like at all. Nevermind that you spent the entirety of your formative years trying to start a friction fire under your blankets feet away from your parents bedroom. When you and your stuff reside somewhere else, even thinking about masturbating at your parents house seems dirty and totally weird. I was almost ready to go get a hotel room.

6 comments:

Tara said...

After my sister & I moved out, I would go home and notice that the only things my parents seem to regularly have in their kitchen would be: wine, several kinds of cheese, olive spread, and French bread. This is, I can assure you, not what we grew up on.

Anonymous said...

We had all the junk food you could ask for in the Outer Banks. Ever have a Kit Kat mixed in with your pancakes???

Another poor decision on your part to go home instead of with us.

Triple Threat

Anonymous said...

I almost forgot. Enjoy your happy miserable existence.

Anonymous said...

dood, i can't masturbate with anyone around ever. i did it once while jim was in the bathroom. once. i totally freaked out that he would catch me... which kinda made it exciting, but anyway... i can't do it unless the house is empty.

Mandy said...

I went to visit my family one year and my husband and I stayed upstairs in the spare room. Which directly over the living room. Anyhow, hubby was very much in the mood, so we did the deed, but the whole time all I could think about was the fact that we were doing it in my parents house, and my Dad was SO going to ground me! Never ever will I do that again!

Anonymous said...

amc! i'm so sorry you didn't have your pretzels or your milk! i used to love the cookies from the jar on the counter! and that cupboard next to the fridge was always stocked! i just can't fathom. to relate, though, i've been out of my parents house for 10 years now and the garbage has been under the sink (it feels like) most of that time, but still! i go to throw stuff out in the corner next to the microwave, which is also not even there.