Role Reversal

Last night was the first time I've ever had my parents over for dinner.  Brother in tow.

My wife and I live in a townhouse approximately 1 block away from an identical townhouse that my parents owned about 10 years ago.  I lived there, too.

In a way, the layout of mine is identical to the way theirs was.  The difference lay in a missing fireplace and a 6 foot by 8 foot den, which is just open space for us.  Of course, everything else is completely different.  Except for the dinner table.  It's a different home.  A different life.

When my parents first visited a couple of months ago, there was no living room.  We had a dinner table we'd sit at.  The kitchen was in pieces.  Our bedroom was mostly made up, but you couldn't shower upstairs.  Not if you wanted to.  The office... was a room, with a table.

Downstairs, the essentials were installed.  The TV, the 360.  The surround sound system didn't even have mounted speakers at that point.  For my mother, from the moment she stepped in the door, "This place is so small" was her mantra.

Yesterday, I'm sure my father gave her a stern talking to, to ensure that only pleasantries may be spewed from her intellect.  So she needed a focal point:

The China Hutch.

This hutch and I, we haven't gotten along from the start.  It was forced upon us by my wife's relatives, who believed that it should be kept "in the family".  Of course, they had not wanted to keep it themselves.  

Don't get me wrong, it's a beautiful hutch.  Made of nice wood, well finished.  Lots of glass.  My problem?

It's too nice.  And too heavy.

You don't want to leave it behind.  But you don't want to take it with you.  On top of being forced to take it, it's a trifecta of ideas I would normally never subject myself to.  It weighs close to 400 pounds.  If you take everything out of it.  Including the glass shelving.

This was the focus of my mother's attentions.  "What a beautiful hutch."  An attrition of the natural mental process where she would pick out the worst things in the room.  

Instead of "why did you pick that color for the walls" and "when are you going to paint the handrails" or "why is the carpet so dark"; 

"What a beautiful hutch."