Finding Funny

Today, I was accused of sleeping with a female friend.

Today, also, I had a friend come to my house for the first time in about four years.

It felt so strange when she entered the front door. To see a living, breathing, friend step foot into where I reside. The last time I had a friend over was in middle school, and that had ended badly. He had touched and repositioned a globe precious to my mom, and she yelled at him right in front of me. Needless to say, that experience scarred me for quite some time and left me hesitant to have anyone over.

We both sent texts to our parents, and surprisingly, they acquiesced to our requests and allowed my friend to come over. I am not exaggerating when I say it was surreal; with my grandparents gone, my basement felt as empty as a water bottle drained of every last drop. To hear another voice where I usually sit alone, to have a presence amongst the piles of my books – things taken for granted by less sheltered teens, for sure.

Before doing homework, we watched a little bit of The New Normal (which I will definitely write a blog post about). Then, we proceeded to start our piles of school assignments. No drugs, no sex, no weird seances or crazy gambling rings. Just friends, spending time together.

I have been converted.

Later, after she left, my mom attacked me.

“You’re in different clothes in than when you left for school,” she said, more as an accusation than a statement.

I stared at her, wondering whether to be scared or sad.

“You changed before she came, right?” she asked, as if she was stating a fact as opposed to asking a question.

I looked at her. Truthfully, I had changed in the bathroom when my friend had already arrived. But I knew that I had no say, here, so I let it go.

Later on, while I was reading my AP Biology textbook in the basement, she stomped down the stairs and into my bedroom.

“Why are the sheets on this bed changed?” she asked.

My mother specifically told me not to let my friend into the basement. After asking me this, she eyed the environment, searching for signs of estrogen and a teenage love affair.

“There was a spider,” I said, “I had to move the sheets to spray it.”

“Don’t talk back to me,” she snapped.

I almost sighed, but knew that would bring consequences. I stood and thought about how fantastic it would feel to live on a college campus.

“You better not be lying to me, because I will find out,” she implored, looking at the bed as if she could detect dead sperm cells or the scent of lovemaking, “I can’t believe this is what I get for working eight hours a day, a son who spends his time screwing around and doing nothing.”

That went on for quite awhile, in varying volumes. I sincerely hope my neighbors didn’t hear anything.

One of my beautiful and nearly incomprehensible Biology textbooks. Oh, how biochemistry kills me.

The point of this post is not to share how my mom screams at me, or how she assaults me with ignorance every day. Rather, I want to say how funny I find the above event. At the time I almost had a nervous breakdown, but afterward, I had to stifle my laughter to avoid provoking suspicion.

My mom yelled at me because she thought I was having sexual relations with a girl. When I’m gay. It’s even more twisted because I can’t tell her I’m gay because she would abuse me and possibly kick me out. I would love to say “mom, I am utterly disgusted by female reproductive organs”, but that might endanger me. Which sounds horrible, but to me, the irony is pretty humorous.

Right now, I’m swamped in schoolwork and college applications and family problems. But, as cliche as this sounds, there’s no point in pushing myself down. I am lucky – in a year, I’ll hopefully be at some college campus, studying what I love. For now, a solution to all my stress is finding funny things, like how hilarious my mother’s lack of logic is. Or, like how I cannot attend a college information session tomorrow because I’d have to miss an AP class.

Maybe I’m just having a weird Wednesday.

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