don’t cry over, well, you know

My mom doesn’t like when I tell the milk story.

“It makes me sound like a terrible mother,” she exclaims.

“But you aren’t a terrible mother,” I reply. “That’s why it’s funny.”

“It’s not funny to me,” she glares. “And a joke isn’t funny unless everyone is laughing.”

“Are you in kindergarten?”

More glaring.

“Listen, if I wanted people to think you were a bad mother I’d have plenty of more substantial things to tell them than the milk story.” I grin sarcastically at her.

“You,” she says, “are a brat.”

“Possibly,” I reply, “but I’ve never dumped a carton of milk on your head.”

That’s usually where the conversation ends, unless there’s a third party present who begs “tell the milk story, tell the milk story,” and then I, of course, tell the milk story.

The problem with me telling the milk story is that I don’t actually remember many of the details, and without the details there’s just the overarching point that my mother dumped a carton of milk on my head, which is always funnier and more poignant to me than to anyone else. The best is when we tell the story together, because it’s less of a story and more of an argument.

I start: “I was five years old-”
She interjects: “You were six.”
I roll my eyes: “Fine, I was six years old, quietly playing dress up in my room.”
She interjects: “You have never in your life done anything quietly.”

I roll my eyes farther back in my head. “After trying on and playing in a few different outfits I settled, like I always did, on my favorite one, a pink Arabian princess sort of thing with silver stars. I was playing in the kitchen in this outfit and my mother poured an entire carton of milk over my head and ruined my outfit.”

She freaks out: “THIS IS NOT WHAT HAPPENED! It was mid-afternoon and you were being a terrible demon brat of a child all day. Incessant questioning, whining, poking, doing the exact opposite of everything I asked you to do. I had HAD it. I had made it VERY CLEAR that I had HAD it. And yet you kept going, kept annoying me and pushing me closer and closer to the edge.”

I interject: “This is false on all accounts.”

She snaps: “No! Not false. True, all very true. Finally I told you to stay in your room and calm down and I went into the kitchen to fix myself a bowl of cereal. And did you stay in your room? No, you followed me into the kitchen. Did you calm down? No. You were loud and bratty and I couldn’t handle it and I might or might not have missed my cereal bowl and poured the milk on your head.”

“Yeah, complete accident,” I scoff. “You ruined my outfit.”
“I know.”
“That was my favorite outfit.”
“I KNOW.”
“I believe I might or might not still harbor some resentment regarding the ruining of the favorite outfit.”
“Oh will you just let it go already.”