Here is No Why

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Predictions . . . .

December 22, 2008 6:20 PM

omorrow morning, for the first time in two years, I'm going "home," by which I mean that I'm going to the place where my parents live now. I'm really, really excited.

I theoretically fly out of Milwaukee tomorrow morning at 6am. That means that I'm going to leave my apartment at about 3am. Others might think I'm crazy, but I love getting up really early to start a trip. I don't know why, but I'd feel ripped off if my cross-country journey started while the sun was up. I say that I'm theoretically flying out because my trip has an above-average chance of getting canceled due to various weather things. I have my fingers crossed, though. And, come hell or high water, I'm going to be in Los Angeles by this time tomorrow. I may have just set myself up for failure, and maybe the next few days are going to be like that horrible movie with Jonathan Taylor Thomas and Jessica Biel in it, but that's ok. I'm going home.

So I called my mom to tell her my flight info so that she could pick me up. But then I also called my cousin Kaky, because redundancy is good. Especially when you're dealing with my mom and her sister. I love them, but these are the people that once went to a bank and demanded that the teller put several tens of thousands of dollars in a brown paper bag.

In any event, first I thought that Kaky was going to pick me up, but it turns out that my mom and her sister are. Which is fine with me: I'm kind of really excited to see them. Still, they've picked me up several times, and I have a good idea of how things are going to go. I'm going to make some predictions. I'll come back and highlight the ones that were accurate.

Within two minutes of seeing her, my mom will make some comment about my weight. This has never bothered me, but it's absolutely going to happen.
My mom will find some way to both refer to me as an attorney and infantilize me at the same time. I'm expecting something along the lines of the Spanish equivalent of "Look, it's my little attorney-man." There's a 50 percent chance that she'll use some form of baby talk.
Then she'll start using the fact that I'm an attorney to criticize my general appearance. First it'll be my hair. She'll say something about how she's never seen an attorney with hair as ridiculous as mine. Then she'll offer to cut it. I will say no thanks. And she'll persist for my entire stay.
She'll move on to the way I'm dressed. Did you guys see up there when I said that I was leaving my house at 3am in order to make my flight? Can you guess how little I'm going to care about my appearance? I'm going to be wearing jeans and an old t-shirt. If I get really, really lazy, I might just wear my pajama pants. Everyone can fucking deal with it. But my mom will say something about how people would be shocked to find out that I'm a lawyer given the way I'm dressed.
My mom and aunt will tell me that they've made tamales and bunuelos and all manner of delicious Mexican food and that it's all waiting for me at home. I will say thank you, that I'm looking forward to it, but that our first stop is In-n-Out. I will order two double-doubles, animal style, and some fries, also animal style. They'll talk about how that's way too much food.
I'm probably going to be wearing my trench coat because that's what I'm going to wera in Wisconsin and wearing it is the easiest way to carry it. But they'll constantly say "aren't you cold? Mijo, it's so cold! Do you want my jacket? Aren't you cold?" And I'll point out that it's forty degrees and sunny, as opposed to the -2 and windy that it was in Madison. They'll continue to insist that it's really cold and I should be wearing more.

Don't get me wrong. I'm looking forward to all of this. But my family is ridiculous. Now perhaps some of you understand why I'm as ridiculous as I am. Honestly, I don't think I'm half as insane as my mom. It's true.