Something Got Lost in the Translation

I was talking to Sam the other day. Actually, he was doing the talking and I was doing the listening. We don't have many mother-son conversations, so I figured in the interest of furthering our relationship I'd just shut up and listen. Something I'm not particularly good at, shutting up, that is. I always want to suggest something, resolve the problem if there is one. Problem is, he doesn't want me to solve the problem, just listen to it. If he wanted me to solve it his conversation would start with, "We've got a problem" or more likely "You've got a problem". It's gotten so bad that I've taken to saying, "Is this one of those times when I just sit here and listen?" I don’t know why I ask. The answer is always yes.

So there I sat, listening to all the things 14-year old boys will talk about to their moms when he mentions something about older women trolling the bars looking for younger men. Where does a 14-year old hear about stuff like that? And why is he tell me? It was a brief little story, and seeing as this was one of those shut up times, I didn't say anything.

I'd pretty much forgotten the whole thing when Caitlin asked me when I intended to start dating again. I got a brief mental image of myself trolling bars for younger men. What was the word Sam had used? I couldn't remember. All I could remember was it was a desert southwest, mammal and it was used in a sort of disparaging way. Coyote? No, I would have remembered that - especially for the bitch connection. Road runner? They're kind of spindly and flighty, attractive until you get a real solid look at them, sort of what you'd expect from a middle-aged woman trying for a last hurrah, but I seemed to remember it not being a bird. Pronghorn antelope? I believe I would have remembered if Sam used the word pronghorn. No this was something dowdy, grasping. Something that came out at night, scuttling just at life’s fringes. It described a woman who's wearing the same hair colour she did thirty years ago along with the same makeup, squeezing herself into her youngest daughter's clothing. Something with a hard exterior but a soft underbelly, and bad eyesight to boot. There could be only one animal that fit that bill.

I might be old, but I knew the new lingo. Staring my eighteen year old daughter in the eye, I told her, No, I had no intention of making a fool of myself and acting like some pathetic armadillo.