People get on my nerves, and family are people, but I love ’em. They’re why I moved back to Seattle a few years ago. I want to see the family, be closer to them.
After the move, soon as I was settled and found a cheap but good diner, I issued a standing invitation to everyone in the family: “Come to breakfast, any Saturday morning, at Mrs Rigby’s. I’ll be there, and we’ll have hotcakes and a good time.”
Our weekly breakfasts have been about what I’d expected. Mom’s Mom and the family’s the family, so some moments are less than delightful, but overall the breakfasts are a good time.
For many months, I was looking for work and not having much luck, or I was the new hire at some job but unsure it would last, and always Mom wanted to talk at breakfast about where I was working and what exactly I did and whether I liked the work and the boss and the co-workers, and when I wasn’t working she’d want me to tell her why I’d quit and where I’d applied next and where I’d interviewed. It became tiresome, spending our breakfasts talking about jobs and job-hunting, so I asked Mom and the family if we could please not talk about it.
Everyone (including me) agreed that’s a weird thing to ask, but my brothers and sisters stopped asking. Mom wouldn’t stop. Instead she doubled-down, and in addition to asking over and over about my work, she asked over and over why I wouldn’t talk about work. I asked and asked her not to ask, but she kept asking and asking.
In retaliation, I reduced the breakfasts from weekly to twice-monthly, and the change has been a grand success. Mom’s questions about work, and about why I wouldn’t talk about work, slowed to a trickle.
Now that I’m retired she doesn’t ask those questions at all, but there are other questions. She wouldn’t be Mom if she wasn’t prying and guilting me, and believe me, she’s still Mom.
♦ ♦ ♦
Birthdays are silly, especially at my age. I’m a grumpy old man who hates “Happy birthday!” comments and cards, so for years now, decades, I’ve asked my family to let my birthday pass without comment. I’m not 7. I don’t do birthdays.
That’s a weird thing to ask, but it’s already understood that I’m weird, and believe me, I’m weird in ways far weirder than not wanting to hear about my birthdays.
Every year I say again, about six weeks in advance, that what I’d like best for my birthday is to hear nothing about my birthday. But every year, the request is taken as a joke, or a challenge. Mom is part of the annual birthday procession, but it’s unanimous across the immediate family, so there’s an annual flurry of gifts, cards, texts, and phone calls. “Happy birthday, Doug!”
♦ ♦ ♦
Some months have five Saturdays, and when that happens, Mom complains about going three weeks without seeing me. And I miss her, too. Mom can be frustrating, sure, but she’s also clever, even funny sometimes, so on perhaps half the five-Saturday months, we add an extra breakfast together on the last Saturday.
This month, May 2025, has five Saturdays, and a few mornings ago, Mom texted, “Let’s have a third breakfast this month.”
I didn’t hate the idea, almost said yes instantly, but then I remembered that my birthday’s coming up. I would love to be able to forget it, but it’s not allowed.
Last year, my birthday fell on a breakfast Saturday, and it became Doug’s birthday breakfast. This year, it’ll be Doug’s birthday breakfast again. There’ll be cards and presents, and again Mom will tell the waitress to bring me a slice of birthday pie with a candle in it, and again they’ll lead everyone in the restaurant in singing “Happy Birthday” at me.
“Nope,” I texted back.
“Why not?” Mom replied within seconds.
So I told her: “Breakfast will be all ‘happy birthday’ and you know I hate that, so nope.”
“I promise not to even mention your birthday,” she lied. “Think about it please. Let’s have breakfast please.”
“Nope.”
“It is really unreasonable for you to refuse breakfast.”
“Yup.”
“Yup? So yes, we can have breakfast on Saturday?”
“Nope.”
“But whyyyyyyyy?”
“Here’s why, Mom. It’s odd, but it’s me: I don’t want to hear ‘Happy birthday Doug!’ and you know I don’t want to hear it, but you’ll intentionally annoy me by saying ‘Happy birthday, Doug!’ and making sure everyone else says it, too.”
“I promised I wouldn’t say it!”
“Right, so you’ll say, “Happy Day That Mustn’t Be Mentioned!” Or you’ll say it in Pig Latin, appy-hay irthday-bay, and say that’s not saying it. Or you’ll ask Katrina to say it and smile when she does, or you’ll nudge Clay and Dick to come to breakfast and sing the song. “
Then came a long pause without a response, which means one of those ideas must’ve been exactly what Mom had planned. Point, Doug.
Her next message: “It just seems like such a little thing to be bothered about.”
My reply: “Yes yes yes, EXACTLY! It’s tiny! Oh Mom, you are SO CLOSE to understanding! It’s the tiniest thing — I’m not asking to borrow money, not asking for heavy lifting, only asking you not to say four syllables. It’s NOTHING, but you’d rather annoy me than do this microscopically small favor. It’s such a small thing, and you’re adamant about refusing to do it. That’s why I’ll never ever ever ever talk to you about big things in my life, things that actually matter to me.”
“Like what?”
I’ll have no response to that.
♦ ♦ ♦
All the above is absurd, of course. It’s proof only that my mom is nuts, my family is nuts, and most obviously I’m nuts.
What’s nuttiest is that saying no feels like victory, when it only postpones my birthday breakfast for a week. Everyone will still say happy birthday, there will be cards, there will probably be a candle in a piece of pie and the whole restaurant singing “Happy Birthday” again — but it will not be on the last Saturday of May. It’ll be on the first Saturday of June instead, and that’s as close to victory as I’ll ever get.
5/28/2025
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