Like Spoons without Soup
By Megan Shank

My mother often made discipline a game. If we were making pizza and ate the cheese intended for the pies, she would playfully throw flour in our hair. If she caught one of us outside bossing a younger brother to go inside and get us a drink, she would turn the garden hose on the perpetrator.

"Here's a drink!"

If the five of us were running around the house with Nerf Blasters, she would chase us and scream that if she shot us, we were out and couldn't run anymore. Her aim was unmatched.

The games were fun sometimes, but one night, when I was 13, I glared at my steaming pile of potatoes. The challenge was that I had to get through dinner without using the word "like." Every time I said it, my mother slapped her spoon on the table.

"It's not 'like' the bell went off," she said. "The bell went off. You weren't talking to your teacher and she was 'like.' You were talking to your teacher and she said. You thought you missed your bus, but it was right behind 118. It was not 'like' behind 118."

Every pubescent girl experiences moments when she wishes her mother would fall down a well or walk into a busy street without looking. This was one such time. If you asked her, she would tell you she was doing me a favor and that if her tactics were obnoxious, tough toenails. All I wanted was a little peace after my long day at junior high—the most afflictive place in the world's history except for maybe a crucifix on Golgatha.

Why did she have to pick on me, and more importantly, why did we have spoons at the table? We certainly didn't need them.

Unless we were having soup, my four brothers and I rarely set spoons. It was implicitly understood that the fewer utensils the dish-setters put on the table, the less the dishwashers had to do; the favor would be returned.

It annoyed my mother, who wanted the table set "properly." But that night she seemed altogether improper banging her spoon as if she was some sadistic reincarnation of Pavlov and I was her dog.

Many years have passed since I was that little girl, and it amazes me how many of my mother's characteristics I notice in myself. In particular, I hate the word "like."

Conversations with friends can result in an obsessive, silent count, an internal spoon banging with each "like." I find myself holding my breath, sneaking glimpses at my watch and hoping they make it to 20 "likes" before two minutes is up. I imagine the "like" siren whirring, the "like" audience clapping and me, "like" the host, handing the winner a button that says, "I like like."

"You are like the winner," I say, shaking their hand.

"Wow, like thanks," they say.

"Here's a spoon," I say, "you probably don't need it. Oh, and don't thank me. Thank my mother."

——

Megan Shank prefers chopsticks. See her work at www.meganshank.com.

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