So, brains are weird. I just remembered this story from 36 years ago when I was 5.

So I’m unclear if Pat Catans or Micheals are regional or national stores, so in case anyone doesn’t know Pat Catans was a MASSIVE arts and crafts retail store. When I say massive, just picture this. An entire street clearly zoned for industrial use. Warehouses all down the street. A vodka manufacturing plant, and for some reason, the tinyiest amusement park with no rides. It only had putt-putt, batting cages, and an arcade. No rides.

Anyways, in this zone, for some bizzare reason was Pat Catans. A warehouse size arts and crafts store. It later got bought by Micheals (a competing, but much smaller sized crafts store) who closed down all the Pat Catans.

So now that everybody knows the terms, it’s 36 years ago. I’m 5 years old. My mom brings me to Pat Catans to decide on a halloween costume a month away.

There’s a whole isle of halloween costumes seperated by source material. So you had GI Joe all in one area, the Flintstones all in one area. And she asked me if I knew which catagory I wanted. I excitedly said YES!!! THE MUPPET SHOW!!!

And so we walked down to it. My mom asked “Do you know which muppet you want to be?”

And I excitedly said ANIMAL!!!

And my mom says “They’re all animals. Do you want to be a frog? Or a bear? Or a pig?”

And I was annoyed. So I said “No, I want to be ANIMAL.”

And my mom says “but which one? There’s lots of animals on the muppet show.”

Now I was getting REALLY annoyed. My mom watched this show with me every saturday night. She KNEW who animal was. And I didn’t understand why she was doing this.

I said “No. Mom. Listen. The drummer from the band. His name is Animal.”

And my mom says “But all the band members on the show are animals! WHICH ONE???”

And I’d had enough. I picked up the Animal costume, and said “THIS ONE! THIS ONE RIGHT HERE. WHATS HIS NAME???..YEAH, HIS NAME IS ANIMAL!!!”

And then my mom drops this whole act and gets snippy with me

“HEY! Don’t take that tone with me, or you won’t get the costume at all!”

And this has summed up our entire relationship. To this day. She feels it’s entirely acceptable to not care about how she’s making others feel. But if you give her backlash, even a fraction of what she’s doing, she can’t handle it, and flys off the deep end. She wants HER feelings respected, but doesn’t respect anybody elses.

I have no idea why this popped into my head randomly today, but I felt here was a good place to share.