This Isn't Me, I'm Not Mechanical

My mum came to visit me on Saturday. We sit down to lunch and she's telling me this story that is just filled with all these details. I'm slightly hungover and trying hard to make sense of what she's telling me, and about halfway through it hits me like a sucker-punch:

There is no point to this story.

There will be no pay-off. No punch-line. No greater lesson or meaning about life, the universe or anything. Just a middle-aged woman offering me some random anecdote from her life—filled with minute details that sound like they should pay-off but, in fact, are complete red herrings.

I realize this and, for a moment, my heart fills with panic. I feel trapped. At this table, at this restaurant. I'm not here to have an interesting conversation. I'm here to pretend to be a good son. To pretend to be interested in the mundane minutiae of this woman's life.

A story about locking her keys in her car. A story about having some dresses altered. I tense up and try to seem interested. I listen to a story about what she had for breakfast the other day as if she were debriefing me on some secret ops mission. "Eggs," I say, for confirmation. "Hard-boiled eggs? How many?"

I could not care less about any of this. But this is the life she leads and she is offering me these stories as precious gems. And she is my mother, and I love her, and she makes the effort to come visit me because she misses me so I don't want to be rude. I want to give her the good son routine.

But it occurs to me in that moment... I don't know how that routine goes.