My son moved out. He moved to Queens. I am adjusting. I would adjust much better if I didn’t read the paper every morning. The letter Q…as in Queens is an obvious letter no matter what font it is in. So when I skim through the paper every day my eye is drawn to the Q….for Queens….. Queens man killed in drunken brawl, Queens Blvd named worst intersection for pedestrians, 2 shot 1 dead in Queens, Queens man goes missing. Of course none of these caught my eye while he lived at home safely tucked away in his Brooklyn basement apartment. And none of these are anywhere near the Queens area my son moved to. But still.
Half his clothes are still here. The teeny closet he had now looks like a walk in compared to the shared closets of his new apartment. Space wise it helps that his girlfriend is a size zero at best. I pass the closet with half his clothes and no door everyday when I do the laundry. (ok so I don’t do laundry everyday, but you get the picture) I am tempted to smell his shirts the way they do in sad, soap opera-y movies when someone dies. I have to remind myself he is only in Queens. A borough away but when the Belt Parkway is between you and a loved one it can be as far as a cross country trek.
I spoke to him twice since he moved. Once on the phone and once when he stopped by for a nano-second to get some stuff he left behind. He rang the bell and was double parked. This ain’t gonna work. He did come by this past Sunday to get some more of his stuff and to do laundry. God Bless the laundry room, I knew it would come in handy one day.
We cleaned out his fridge so that we could unplug it and save like eight cents a year. (My husband has been going green since before going green was fashionable) There were six outdated yogurts that he forgot to tell me he didn’t like, so I bought more thinking he did. There were frozen beer mugs, shot glasses and airplane size liquor bottles in the tiny freezer. There was also a frozen mouse, dead I presume (it was in aluminum foil), back from the days when he had a snake. I won’t be drinking anything out of those mugs anytime soon. The snake was adopted out when his girlfriend made him choose her or it when they moved. He took the A-1 steak sauce, hot sauce, the Snapples and the chocolate chips for his chocolate fountain. (yes, it was a gift) I got the inch worth of pancake syrup, the quarter stick of butter that was frozen near the mouse and a few dirty dishes that never quite made it back upstairs.
My son told me my dog smells. I mean he always told me that when he lived here, and the dog does stink….but now as a resident of Queens I feel he has forfeited his right to critique my dog’s…..aroma. He told me the wall near my back door was dirty….twice. I found myself explaining how his father always has filthy hands from working on the car and blah blah blah…what the hell….I am not explaining myself to someone (not even my son, my son) who just recently painted his entire apartment. Wanna paint it, be my guest.
I am feeling useless. I don’t get to wait up for him or even know whether or not he made it home in one piece. I don’t get to assume the worst when he is minutes later than expected, and I miss the elation when he walks in the door safe and sound. I can’t make sure he has his breakfast yogurt…even if they are the wrong flavors. I certainly can’t ask his girlfriend to cook when he gets in late so that he doesn’t have to eat reheated food. I can’t look at his face and know exactly how his day has gone. I miss my son. It’s just me and Mr.Wonderful now and he doesn’t eat yogurt, I don’t worry about him coming in late and he will eat anything reheated or not. Yup, just the two of us yelling across the dinner table over the blaring TV about the dirty wall and how much the dog smells.
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