"It's hard out here for a pimp."

It wasn't just the comments on my last post that wondered if my mother truly understood that I meant girlfriend with a capital G. Ms. K was also rather suspicious and pointed to the fact that my mother had offered her the fold out couch instead of the bed that I was sleeping in. But c'mon, I thought. My mom's an intelligent lady, right?

I mean it only briefly occurred to me that maybe she had become one of the Pod People because the conversation went off without much incident. How could she not know that I meant "my girlfriend?" When I woke up this morning, my father still snoring from the other room, I discovered her watching Hustle & Flow. Then I really began to wonder if she was one of the Pod People.

But then I realized that perhaps our conversation hadn't been so successful when she asked if I had heard from my "friend" as we drove to lunch. I thought she meant Laura, who is back again on my shit list for telling me she would check up on my cats yesterday but never calling to say she did so nor responding to my text. "No your friend from Pennsylvania," my mother interrupted when I started on my diatribe about Laura dropping the ball.

Oh. My "friend." Jesus fucking Christ, do I have to have this conversation all over again?

I could have clarified the matter then (I should have fucking clarified the matter the night before), but instead I decided to silently fume in the back seat of the car, fume over lunch, fume in the liquor store, and fume in the grocery store. It was an old tactic that I had perfected in my teen aged years and apparently I was still quite good at it.

When I got home I talked to Ms. K on the phone for an hour or so, managed to calm down, and listened to the sound of her wrapping presents. Afterwards I went into my parents' bedroom where my mother was alone watching television and wrapping a gift for her sister.

"You know I meant my girlfriend girlfriend was coming down to get me," I said, staring at my hands as I petted my parents' cat.

"Oh I didn't know."

"But I said my girlfriend," I mumbled like a disaffected teenager.

"But I didn't know what you meant. I have girlfriends too."

I sighed and suddenly it was like it was 1994 when I was miserable and used to lock myself in my bedroom for hours on end.

And then she said, "Rouge, it's all right. We just want you to be happy. Are you going to stop moping?"

"Maybe."

"Well stop moping around. So are you going to tell us anything about her?"

After I explained to my mom that Ms. K is a devastatingly pretty genius, I felt a little deflated for having gotten worked up TWICE for nothing. But I guess this counts as a Christmas Miracle and if my mom is telling the truth, all she wants is for me to be happy and that's the best Christmas present of all.