This story reminded me of my grandmother. When people asked her age, she would proudly tell them:
Grandmother: “I just had my sixteenth birthday!”
She wasn’t lying; she was born on February 29th. It blew my mind a little when I was a kid.
Related:
My Mom Has Been Forty-Nine For Decades, Part 2
My Mom Has Been Forty-Nine For Decades
I’m at a bridal shower. At the entrance, we were all given a scrunchie with the instructions that if we hear anyone say “wedding”, we take their scrunchie. The person with the most scrunchies at the end will win a prize. The mother of the groom is there with her two teenage daughters. I’ve met them a couple of times, but I don’t know them very well. [Mother] keeps telling everyone who will listen that she has spent A FORTUNE on the wedding.
Mother: “Oh, my gosh, the caterer was $17,000! I couldn’t believe it! I said, ‘[Son], if this is what you want for your wedding—’”
Daughter: *Grinning* “Mom, give me your scrunchie.”
Mother: “What? Why?”
Daughter: “You said the W-word.”
She puts her hand out, but her mother swats her away.
Mother: “Don’t be stupid. I’m not playing right now.”
Daughter: “But Mom—”
Mother: “Go somewhere else. I’m talking.”
The girls leave the table. [Mother] is still talking about how much she has spent, even though everyone around her is uncomfortable.
Mother: “I just couldn’t believe it! Her dress— Did you see her dress? When I got married, my wedding dress was $800. Hers is over $8,000!”
Man At The Table: “I’ll take your scrunchie, thank you!”
Mother: “That’s just a stupid game. Nobody is actually playing. Even the bride thought it was dumb.”
The bride is standing nearby and turns toward us. She comes over, and removes the scrunchie from [Mother]’s wrist, and gives it to the man.
Bride: “It is a stupid game, but it’s also fun.”
Man At The Table: “Actually, it should go to [Daughter] since [Mother] said the W-word before, too.”
Bride: “Okay!”
She took the scrunchie and gave it to the girl. [Mother] stopped talking and got into her phone. [Daughter] actually won the “stupid game” and got a $100 gift card as a prize.
As with most Asian families, my family believes that having a white-collar job is above anything. This is very evident with a couple of relatives who force their children to go to medical school. Any career other than a doctor is a sin in their eyes.
My mother was open-minded about my choice of career. The only condition she had was that I should have at least a bachelor’s degree before getting a job. So, I started working in the IT industry after college graduation. I had decent pay, I was able to learn and experiment at my own pace, and I even got an opportunity to work abroad. I was happy with my career.
Things weren’t easy at first, as with all jobs. I struggled to settle down with the workload and the new city. I reached out to my family to help me find a job near my home. My entitled relatives got hold of this piece of news during a family gathering.
Instead of helping me out, they scoffed. My aunt told my younger cousins:
Aunt: “See, this is why you shouldn’t be an engineer. You’re going to struggle and end up with nothing. After all, a doctor is the most respectable job in society.”
I blinked at her. I was shocked that she could just insult my career in front of everyone. I was also disgusted at her because she’s a teacher and I expected her to know better. I didn’t want to make a scene, so I didn’t talk back. But someone else did: my mother.
My mother is a single parent. She was a brilliant student at school and dreamt of being a teacher. But that was all gone when she was married off. She regretted that when she was divorced and struggled to live. She wanted her daughters not to go through the same thing. She sold her jewellery and spent her savings to get us a decent education so that we could get jobs. She was furious when someone insulted our hard work.
She didn’t hold back her anger as she thundered:
Mother: “Are you out of your d*** mind, [Aunt]? You’re a teacher! Can’t you show a bit of dignity when you speak? Don’t you have common sense to think that your daughter couldn’t work in a hospital with electricity, running water, machines, or software if there were no engineers? Even a janitor at the hospital has their value. If you ever insult my daughter or her choices again, you will see the worst of me!”
The room was silent as everyone watched my aunt process what was going on. Nobody had ever seen my mother that mad.
But it did a good thing. [Aunt] never raised a word about her children’s careers or mine after that. Also, two of my cousins got into the engineering stream following the incident!
When I was a kid, my parents, aunt, and uncle sent my cousins, my brothers, and me to church youth group every week. One night, my parents were too busy to get us there, so my aunt offered to drive us along with her kids and even get us all some dinner beforehand. Since we were short on time, we went through the drive-thru of a nearby fast food restaurant so we could quickly eat at the church before youth group started.
Like most young kids anticipating fast food, my cousins and brothers were rowdy. With six or seven kids (including me) crammed into one vehicle, you can imagine the noise. My aunt had to repeat herself a few times at the speaker until I got fed up and turned around in the passenger seat.
Me: “SHUT UP OR YOU DON’T EAT!”
The car went quiet, my aunt finished placing the order, and everyone got their food. My aunt even thanked me once we got to the church!
I am a disabled veteran, and when this happened, I was solely depending on a walking stick. I could not walk more than ten feet maximum without assistance. A friend asked me to be a bridesmaid at her wedding. She quickly proved herself to be a bridezilla from Hell, and everything had to meet her vision. Everything had to fall within her very rigid scope of what the aesthetics should be.
[Bride] made a couple of what she claimed were innocent comments about my walking stick. I offered multiple times not to be a bridesmaid and to assist in any other way I could. She refused every offer and insisted that I had to be a bridesmaid.
Then, I heard from another close friend (also a bridesmaid) that [Bride] was very upset that I was insisting on using my walking stick. She had commented that she was just going to hide it, and then I would just have to go without it. Looking at the mutual friend’s face when she said that, [Bride] tried to laugh it off as a joke.
There was no doubt in my mind that she was going to try to make my walking stick go missing, so I made arrangements.
Sure enough, the wedding rolled around, and while I was getting my hair and makeup done, my walking stick disappeared. I was not happy.
Me: *To everyone* “I have to have my stick back. I cannot walk down the aisle without it.”
Bride: “We don’t know where it is! We’ve looked everywhere. You’re just going to have to make do.”
Me: “So, after you joked about taking my walking stick, it goes missing, and you want me to make do?”
Bride: “You’ll just have to do what you can do to get up the aisle.”
Cue malicious compliance.
I texted my boyfriend. He went out to the car and brought in a mobility scooter that I had rented just in case I needed it. I had him put it out of sight but where we could get to it easily, and then he or the other bridesmaids physically supported me. We made our way to the back of the hall for the start of the ceremony.
[Bride], who had been talking to her father and not paying attention, did not see the scooter until she started to walk up the aisle. There were her three bridesmaids: two standing tall and me sitting on the most hideous-looking mobility scooter I could find, multicolored with sparkles.
If looks could kill, [Bride] would have planted me. Within seconds of the ceremony ending, my walking stick had been found. [Bride] and her new husband brought it over to me.
Bride: “Your walking stick has been found. Now you can get that god-awful scooter back out to your car.”
I mustered up a tear.
Me: “I’m so sorry, but I am in so much pain from having to try to walk without my walking stick that there is no way I will be able to go without the scooter.”
I am very proud to say that the scooter is in over 90% of her wedding photos. Unfortunately, I do not have any of the pictures. I wish I did. I know that there was one photo taken of the other two bridesmaids on the scooter with me attempting a drunken version of the Hokey Pokey.
