Mother Like Mine

It is typical of my mother that, far from being overjoyed that her first born had travelled 100 miles to visit on Mothering Sunday and came bearing gifts of flowers and chocolates, she was more bothered about her broken footstool. I had spotted a leg had fallen off last time I visited, and said I would bring glue and tools to fix it next time I was down. The card, flowers and chocolates warranted only a cursory glance before I was given the list of things she wanted me to deal with. Apart from the broken footstool, there was a “lot of paperwork” that she didn’t know what to do with. Knowing that if I tried to go through it while she was around I’d just get quizzed about every bit of paper I wanted to throw out, I said I’d take all paperwork in the house, and go through it in the flat this afternoon while I was fixing the footstool.
The stool has now received a liberal application of Instant Grab Adhesive, which should hold the leg more firmly in place, and the paperwork pile has been reduced to only a few relevant documents, the rest being marketing mail, receipts from two years ago and assorted random jottings which made no sense at all (and probably didn’t make much sense even when they first written.)
Confidential stuff has been shredded, important stuff has been filed and the rest has gone in the recycling bin. I’ll return the stool tomorrow after the glue has fully dried.
Her parting comment was to say it was very inconvenient me living so far away, and couldn’t I move closer so that I could come round and deal with these things on a more regular basis.
Nope, that’s one of the reasons I moved away - so I couldn’t be asked just to “pop round” Quite enough going on at home that needs dealing with, thank you very much!