For the most part, my parents have given up on hounding me to get married.  I suspect that the arrival of my niece is largely responsible for this. Sometimes I think they’re about to make some remark about the issue, and then they catch sight of my niece and quickly lose interest.  Why bang their heads against the wall when they can go marvel at the reality of actual, reproduced genes, wobbling around their house in a cute little package?

It is, however, impossible to disrupt the karmic balance of the universe by avoiding the topic entirely.  Where the efforts of my flesh and blood have fallen off, my friend’s mother has stepped up to take their place.

As you may have noticed from the below post, some of my old college friends are asian.  I’ve known their parents for almost two decades.  In particular, I’ve known the mother of my Chinese friend. She and I have always liked each other, although we have rarely exchanged more than a few sentences; she doesn’t speak or understand English well, so it’s inconvenient to hold long conversations. 

If we spend any degree of time together, she grills me about my personal life.  And so it was when we came back from southern California and I ended up having dinner with my friend, his wife, and his mother.  We ate pizza and drank soda while the mother regarded me steadily.  I munched away placidly, knowing what was coming, and so it did--in a sudden, booming voice.  She talks loudly to ensure that her broken English is understood by all.

“YOU HAVE GIRLFRIEND YET?”

This is the first thing she had said to me other than “HELLO” an hour earlier. I looked up and said, “Nothing serious right now, Mrs. [NAME DELETED].”

“AH, YOU NEED TO GET GIRLFRIEND.”

“Sure,” I said.

“YOUR PROBLEM, TOO PICKY.”

“Hey,” I shrugged.  “They just need to breathe and shop and cook.  Is that so wrong?”

“TOO PICKY NOT GOOD.  YOU NEED TO GET GIRLFRIEND. BUT NOT ONE YOU HAD BEFORE.”

At this, everyone around the table stared at her.  I knew exactly who she was talking about: she had only met one of my girlfriends, and that was several years ago.

My friend said, “What is that supposed to mean?”

I told him, “Your mother met [NAME DELETED]. And she told you afterwards that she didn’t really like her. Don’t you remember?”

He shook his head. “I don’t remember that at all.”

“It was a long time ago. It’s amazing that this still nags at her.”

“YES, NOT ONE LIKE HER. SHE WAS NOT HIGH QUALITY.”

My friend’s wife laughed. He shook his head again.

I looked at the mother.  “Mrs. [NAME DELETED], wait a minute and think about what you’re saying.  First you said I’m too picky.  Then you said a girl I dated wasn’t of high quality.  Does that make sense?  Either I’m too picky or I’m not picky enough. Which is it?”

I think we both realized at the same moment that we had just exchanged more words--and with more substance--than we had in all the years we’d known each other. Still, I was excited.  How often do you get to catch people in such a rhetorical trap?  I couldn’t help grinning.

She looked back and smiled dazedly. She said, “HA HA HA.”

Then she kept on eating.  I couldn’t believe it. She had played the language card!  She had completely understood my meaning, but was backing out on the pretense of not understanding English.

My friend looked at me and rolled his eyes.

I said, “Hand me another slice of pizza.”

I glared at my napkin.  Substitute moms are a rotten deal.  At least the real ones can’t back out of a good argument on account of a sudden bout of English amnesia.