When quarantines and mandatory shelter-in-place orders became the norm, I heard a lot of comments about how there might be a spike in breakups and divorces when this is all over (har dee har har). As a single person, however, I can’t help but wonder about the rest of us – those stuck in close quarters with people we can’t neatly excise from our lives once things “go back to normal.”
I’m talking, of course, about family.
I’m 33 years old and living with my parents again for the first time in nearly a decade. The last time I was home for a semi-permanent stay was also, coincidentally, the last time I was unemployed, and it was a particularly contentious period. I had been on my own for more than five years at that point, and not used to anyone caring where I went, what time I came home, or if I came home at all.
There were some heated conversations about “while you’re under our roof” and whether or not it was okay to have a boy in my room (it was not). Up until this point, my parents had never had to deal with such issues – in high school, I was a well-behaved nerd who never got invited to parties and whom boys could not have been less interested in. Mike and Carol were #blessed.
We were both (I assume) relieved when I finally moved out again after ten months.
The upside to this time of co-habitation, I suppose, is that there’s nowhere for me to go and I’m essentially forbidden by the government to have a boy in my room. So, things have been going fairly smoothly.
I say “fairly” because, as in almost any living situation, you’re bound to learn new things about your roommates. You’ll discover new quirks and idiosyncrasies that never raised any flags before you were faced with them every single day for 31 days. (But who’s counting?!)
***
I’d forgotten, for instance, what a vocal person my father is.
“I’m going to work out in the garage and then probably go for a bike ride!” he often announces, unprompted, to my mother and I.
“I think it’s time for a sandwich,” he’ll say, once noontime rolls around. He might even tack on his plans to toast the bread.
“Yessir, this is the life,” he’ll proclaim as he stretches loudly in his chair.
I don’t know why my father’s need to constantly narrate his life surprised me. He’s done this in the car for as long as I can remember – so much, in fact, that my brother and I have threatened to record him and release it as a regularly occurring podcast. He doesn’t just point out things like new restaurants or other changes that have been made since we last made a pilgrimage together. Instead, he’ll comment on exciting landmarks like an Arby’s that’s been there forever or a chain hotel my brother and his college roommate stayed at once, twenty years ago, when they were on spring break.
I like to point out similarly inane things to him (“Tree! “Overpass!” “Dead snake!”) until he realizes what I’m doing, calls me a smartass, and pantomimes turning a key on his mouth to lock it up.
It never lasts.
***
Spending this much time with my mom, however, has meant gaining fluency in another language altogether.
She’s often been, shall we say, a bit scatterbrained, but her attention span and memory have taken a dive since she retired a few years ago. When I ask if she’s been taking her memory supplement, she’ll admit that, no… she forgot. She then recently followed that up with a wave of the hand and “What do I need to remember things for? It’s just you guys.”
The three of us got into the habit of watching a few episodes of the show Ozark every evening after dinner (more on that later), and each night Mom would inevitably pick up the remote and ask “What is this on, again? Hulu? Amazon?” And my father or I would remind her it was Netflix.
Every. Single. Night.
Later, when we’d finished that series, I was lobbying to try The Wire since none of us had seen it. Mom scrunched her nose at the suggestion.
“That’s the one with the bald guy. I don’t like him.”
“You mean, you don’t like the actor who plays him?” I asked.
“No.”
I should point out that this is all typical behavior for my sweet Catholic mother. Her standards for television and movies rely heavily on the superficial. For instance, she refused to watch Scrubs not because she thought it was a bad show, but because Zach Braff is “too weird looking.” She also thinks John Krasinski would be so cute if he would “just pin his ears back.”
Anyway, having never seen The Wire, I had no idea what actor my mom was talking about.
“He’s the bald guy. He’s in… things.”
It was only through my own distrust of my mother’s memory that I eventually figured out she was talking about Michael Chiklis. Of The Shield.
“Why do you always have to be so precise!” she complained when I pointed this out.
***
I can tell I’m disrupting their lives, too – don’t worry.
All of a sudden, their dinners that had created leftovers for several meals are being polished off the night of. Often, this happens several hours later, when I have my second dinner at 10 p.m. (What? Doesn’t everyone do this?)
We also seem to have different ideas of what constitutes as suitable when it comes to cleanliness. My philosophy takes a page from the “out of sight, out of mind” stance, and as such, it seemed perfectly reasonable to leave my four types of sunscreen out on the patio for my inevitable next session of sunbathing. I also didn’t see why I needed to fish any of the noodles or floats out of the pool each evening. (They’re made to be in the pool!)
My parents disagree.
My worst transgression, though, happened this past week.
Though I am inching toward my mid-30s, I still have the pleasure of fighting acne on the reg, and after almost of month of being careful, I finally ruined my mom’s guest towels with my napalm-level face wash. The wash cloths look like a tortured spirit was murdered, its face forever imprinted on the terrycloth before it disappeared into the ether.
“Oh my god,” I heard my mother gasp when she saw the evidence hanging from the towel rod. I winced.
On the bright side, they now have something to remember me by.
