Whenever I have to travel due to work, my mom always comes to my house to take care of my baby (and be the ‘warden’ to my niece). Since she’s the grandma my puppy (and my niece) get delicious homemade food, and I come home to a clean house and absolutely no dirty laundry (yay!)
The downside to such bliss are my mother’s Mexican novellas (a.k.a . soap operas) Mexican novellas only come in a few flavors. #1 Rich boy finds poor girl, rich boy cannot marry poor girl, poor girl turns out to be rich at the end and rich boy can now marry her. #2: Rich nice girl gets cheated on by fiancé, rich nice girl turns into rich mean girl, rich mean girl meets nice neighbor boy, nice neighbor boy has to do a little ‘Taming of the Shrew’, Rich mean girl turns nice and ends up with nice neighbor boy. #3: Combo of #1 & #2. They also all have ridiculously long names like ‘Juan Jaime Mondragon Curiel’, or ‘Luis Phelipe Montecinos Aguirre’. (The really funny part is that whenever my old fashioned first name shows up on a novella….it’s always the name of the maid…WTF!)
However, it never fails that every time my mom comes to visit, I end up hooked on one of these Satan’s spawned TV shows. Next thing you know I am no longer returning phone calls because….. the novella is on. I am no longer reading my latest book…because the novella is on. I am no longer worried that I don’t have any clean underwear for tomorrow because …YOU GOT IT…the novella is on. It’s like crack!
The good thing about these Mexican soap operas is that they end in about 2 or 3 months. However, as soon as my mom leaves, it usually takes me a few weeks to wean myself off of them. Don’t get me wrong, I still watch the ending, but I skip most of the middle….because the middle only has a lot of crying, back stabbing, and gratuitous sex scenes. I am not a prude (okay…maybe just a little), but I don’t really want to see anyone’s ass up in the air when I am trying to relax and have my dinner on the sofa …am I right?
After my mom went back home the last time she was here…my niece comes home from school and was telling me how she found grandma watching porn on TV….WHAT? She explained that she had gotten home late from school and as soon as she walked in she noticed two almost naked people on the screen ‘doing the nasty’ and grandma lying on the couch. My niece said she called out ‘Grandma!’…… and my mom did the only thing she could......she pretended she was asleep (she says always falls asleep on the couch watching novellas). ….Likely story mom!
Mexican novellas have always been a part of my upbringing. I remember when I was little hanging out underneath my mom’s ironing board while she ironed and listened to her soap operas on the radio. However, now that they are on TV, my mom and her little Missy ( Shitzu-Yorkie mix puppy) are dead to the world from 6 to 9 pm. My step dad tells her she is going to give Missy ‘Rigor Mortis’ from all the non-movement of her novella habit.
Good or bad, right or wrong, rigor mortis or not…my mom will continue to watch her shows because cheesy story lines, handsome men with long names, bad acting and naked asses seem to make my mom happy. If mom is happy….then we can ALL be happy!
