bad metaphor

My sister and I view Houston as a magical culinary palace encircled by a moat of cars, but my mother sees it as a city fraught with terrible dangers*. Perhaps this is because living in Houston entails SO much driving, and my mother emphatically reinforces the stereotype of Asian women being awful drivers: she’ll slow down to a near crawl for a turn, and practically roll through the intersection by virtue of inertia alone. Anyway she admits that she is uncomfortable driving on the freeways, so whenever I am visiting I will often drive her car. But I’m not sure sometimes whether I am more stressed out enduring her actual driving, which might induce an angry Texan to get out of his car and shoot her – or her backseat driving, which gives me road rage. My mother realizes that I can drive, I think (I did drive her practically all the way to Pennsylvania once), but The Nag is strong with her, she just can’t help herself. Once I had barely finished shifting the car into reverse, to back out of the garage, when my mother yelped, “Be careful!!” Startled, I looked behind me, fearing I was on the verge of crushing a cute puppy or old lady or something. There was nothing, of course. She was merely keeping me on my toes.

When my brother-in-law arrived, he did most of the driving by default. Despite the fact that she is terrified of his driving (he’s a touch, um, aggressive behind the wheel, to put it charitably!) (Hi, M!), he is a man and therefore automatically better equipped to drive than little girly me. Ordinarily this would annoy my feminist sensibilities, but in this case I was MORE THAN HAPPY to have someone else be the target of the backseat driving. Luckily for M, she’s a little more reluctant to nag him openly; unluckily for my sister, Chiaroscuro, she then gets the brunt of it. A lane change or slight route deviation would cue clucking, sighing and bossy murmuring in Vietnamese from the rear of the car.

Cars aren’t the only things to terrify my mother. My mother had called M’s attention to some ants milling around the base of her house outside. So far as we know, no ants had actually made it inside, but seemed content in their little ant hill suburbs. She said she was worried about termites, so M looked at them and tried to assure her that these ants were indeed ants, and not termites. She nodded and said that she knew they were ants, but still seemed to obsess over them. She had purchased some heavy duty termite toxic death in a can, and wanted M’s corroboration with her planned ant genocide. M wondered what exactly her deal was with these ants, and again reassured her that these ants weren’t doing any harm as they were.

“I know they are ants, but I heard ants can turn into termites!”

One: ants cannot turn into termites, unless biology has failed me. Two: her house appears to be made out of brick and concrete, not anything that is good to eat for termites. Then again, if an ant really could turn into termite, what’s to stop that horrible creature from eating brick, then concrete, then eventually chow down into human brains? Houston ain’t just good eatin’ for people.

Who can trust a world, in which ants can morph into termites and traffic dustups can devolve into quick-draw duels? Though I do not understand my mother, at all, I really wonder what it must be like to be her and to be terrified of everyone and everything, every day**. One of the first few nights I was there, I was relieved to be in a nice warm climate and a not-freezing house! My room was a bit stuffy, so I decided to crack open the window.

“BROOP BROOP BROOP BROOP!” “BROOP BROOP BROOP BROOP!” After my initial shock I realized I’d made a mistake, and ran down towards the alarm system, where my mom and brother were both running back and forth like scared chickens. “Sorry mom, I just opened the window! Sorry!” The alarm system automatically notified the police, my mom had to explain to a grumpy dispatcher what had happened, and I apologized profusely. I guess my mom is worried about crime in the area, and sure, South Houston doesn’t have the best reputation. But…she can’t even crack a window, to enjoy the nice weather? (Of course she probably also thinks this behavior is dangerous).

She also has barred and locked gates blocking entry to the outside doors, in addition to deadbolts and two other locks. Now, as my friend Krissy can attest, I am also kind of paranoid about safety things (for instance it is totally not safe of Krissy to take photos of herself while driving. and I don’t care if I am an e-nag. Hey, it’s in my blood). However, the things I am paranoid about and that my mother is paranoid about do not intersect. Mom is paranoid about burglars breaking in and stealing her early 1990′s TV set with bunny ears, or her collection of pirated Chinese soap opera teleseries dubbed into Vietnamese. Whereas my sister and I are paranoid about, oh, fire safety and potential barrier to exits.

I actually think that fire may be the #1 safety concern in Houston, but one that has astonishingly failed to become incorporated into my mother’s long list of terrors. I spent New Year’s Eve both enchanted by the many impressive fireworks displays going off around our neighborhood, and horrified. I mean, our directly-next-door neighbor was shooting off shit like roman candles and things, while standing directly beneath a tree. My mom said she was too scared to sleep on New Year’s Eves in Houston, because the fireworks sound a lot like gunfire. This is a valid fear in trigger-happy Texas. What is less than valid, from my perspective, is the fear that people will try and burgle your home during the New Year celebrations. Why then, of all times? Perhaps robbers will figure that the Houston PD will be too distracted dealing with people who caught themselves on fire, to be bothered chasing after them?

I never figured out her logic behind that, and I may never figure out her logic behind anything, ever. I do wonder if maybe next visit, the family activity should involve baking a big cake laced with Xanax, lounging around, and enjoying each others’ company – without fear.

* – In looking up all those Houston road-rage-turned-into-shooting articles to link – um, maybe Mom’s a little justified in her terror!

** – I just realized I have these two separate category tags, “Family” and “Crazy.” Perhaps I should just merge these.