I live with my husband and my son, but I am the only one in the household who speaks English!
I am the lone female in my house. I live with my husband and adult son (who moved back home a few years ago to finish school and pay off debt). So, where once the females outnumbered the males, I am now the minority.
Both of my guys work at the same large aviation company and their titles and jobs are so complicated that I seriously don’t know what they do all day. I used to be really embarrassed when people asked me what they did for a living, but now my standard answer is: “I have no idea.” I am past being embarrassed. They have explained their jobs to me a million times but as soon as they start talking my brain shuts off.
I can’t help it. I am just not wired that way. The other day my son was explaining how to do something on my laptop (for the hundredth time). In frustration I said, “I don’t know why this doesn’t make sense to me!” He patted me on the top of my head and said with a smile, “You don’t understand it because it’s logical, Mom.” I would have immediately written him out of my will except: A) He’s right, and B) He’d probably have to show me how to do that too!
Anyway, as soon as the guys arrive home from work they start talking about their days. This would be a sweet ritual except for one thing: I don’t understand a word they say! They speak in a strange mix of technical terms and abbreviations. I look back and forth at them in wonder. How in the world are they understanding each other? Their words make no sense to me at all. None. Seriously, I have no idea what they are talking about.
They share the funny things that happen during their days. They laugh at jokes I don’t understand and they amaze each other with new technology they’ve seen and read about. They often pass entire evenings in conversation, stopping only when it is time to go to bed.
They try to include me but by the time they explain even one of the words they are using my brain begins to smoke. For a while I tried to use comic relief and every time they started talking I would say, “I’m so booooored!” But, then my son told me I was being rude and that he found my topics of conversation boring too but was adult enough not to say it to my face (personally, I find myself to be a brilliant conversationalist so I think he just said that to get back at me).
It’s even worse when we all go out to eat because then I am stuck at the same table with them. I can’t wander off to clean the kitchen, do some artwork, or watch TV (in other words … hide). No, I have to sit there with my eyes glazed over while they speak in their strange language that I call: “boring-nerd”.
Sadly, there are no foreign language tapes or Rosetta Stones to teach me how to communicate with them. And, if there were, I’d probably just throw them across the room in frustration anyway. So, my life these days is kind of like watching a foreign film without subtitles. There’s a story there somewhere but most of the time I have no idea what the heck is going on!
That’s why I love meeting you all here on allmomdoes – we get each other, don’t we?
