different strokes

Since Mum has moved in, I have noticed that some quite strange things get on her wick.

At 84, it is expected (and even forgivable) that she be somewhat set in her ways. And, she is. With cement.

There has been give and take on both sides and, in the main, it has been a successful transition. We are prepared to accept having ugly tartan placemats at dinner and a tacky fake crystal decanter on the sideboard. She is prepared to suffer through later dinners and a lack of fluffy mats in the dunny. Give and take.

Trouble is, every time I am about to give her snaps for her adaptability, something arises that sets off her neatness gene or her routine requirements. It is usually without any prior warning and, almost always, without obvious trigger.

She suddenly decided that our sideboard was a waste of space and that I didn't need any of the contents. She got slightly obsessed over the fact that I have two knitting needle boxes and that they should be justified into one single unit. For several days it was my over supply of recipe books which offended her. Another time, the fact that I had tupperware that she considered redundant.

There have also been some ongoing campaigns.

She has a passionate desire to prune our garden (well, strictly speaking, for someone else to prune it). The unpaved state of our driveway offends her (it looks so untidy, dear), as do the vertical blinds on our windows (curtains are so much nicer, Fiona). It annoys her (vocally, every time) that my Wednesday dinner mate doesn't offer to do the dishes (or the kids when they visit) and no matter how often we restate that house rules that dishes are never ever done at night, she still bemoans their lack of manners.

There has been one thing, however, that caught her eye in the first few days of her residency and has been a continuing (and continuous) cause of friction ever since. Everyday, without fail, it rates a good whinge session. It has well and truly got on her goat and she has no intention of leaving it alone. It is a heinous sin that my husband commits every morning. That wicked wicked man is the trigger to a daily tirade.

He leaves his breakfast dishes on the table.

Yep. You read that correctly. This master of evil fails to move his used breakfast crockery from the diningroom to the kitchen sink.

Oh, that such wickedness could be.

Just ask her about it. She'll tell you. She can expound on the reasons that such an act is beyond forgiveness for hours at a stretch. She can tsk and tut and sigh about it at enormous length. Not a morning goes by that she doesn't comment upon it and it is a rare afternoon when it isn't mentioned again, at least once.

This is a sin far beyond not putting a pile of pulled weeds into the compost. It exceeds public nail cleaning and belching in social unacceptability. It is more uncouth than failure to use a dinner napkin and more slovenly than cobwebs in the corner.

That small collection of a glass, a coffee cup, a knife and a plate are a still life of evil.

My husband is the constant offender.

Tonight, it came to a head. (Please note that it occurred in the evening, many hours after the offense was committed.) Instead of her muttered self-whinging or her louder moans to me, she actually tackled the sinner himself.

Had she been direct, the effect would have been different. Max responds well to direct. A simple "can you put your breakfast dishes in the sink in the morning please" would have got a pretty positive reaction. The snide "why do you leave your coffee cup for me to clean up?" got a very different response.

It nearly came to blows. (Well, no, it didn't, but it was reasonably ugly.) She was very much put in her place. She didn't like it. A HUGE sulk ensued.

Hopefully, tomorrow it will be back to business as usual. He'll leave his dishes and she'll tsk and complain to me.

*sigh*

Folks is weird.