My Cuban Mother

You know, I’ve been thinking, I’ve already kind of incorporated my mom in a few posts now… but no one has seemed to mention if they could relate to her. Maybe I’m the only one who has experienced her type of mom-ing. My bad, mothering. But I’m not so convinced. I’m pretty sure your moms have done some similar stuff, you just haven’t told me yet. Granted, my mother is Cuban, so she obviously doesn’t represent all the moms out there. But, she’s the best and all your moms suck, dayuuuuuuuum. I’m just kidding, I’m sure your mothers are lovely women. Either way, I wanted to share some things that my mom does (or did), because I’m not convinced that she’s the only person that does these things.

Things my mom says.

(1) People are looking.

My mom likes to remind me when we are out in public that we are out in public. What I mean is, she constantly points out that anything I do in public is seen by other people. The phrase she likes to use is “people are looking.”

Example: “Dios Mio, you are not going to wear that in public, people will be looking.”

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My first time doing “public speaking”

I‘ve been prompted to discuss my first time doing something. Immediately what came to mind was my first time doing public speaking.

When I was a little kid I was beyond shy. I like invented shy. If you weren’t a family member of mine, I’d be the quietest child you had ever met. I’m not sure why I was like this, but my shyness often took a back seat to my urinary tract.

Anytime we would be doing an activity in class I’d go about my business until I had to do my business – get what I’m saying? I had no problem approaching my teachers one-on-one to let them know that things were stirring down below. I’d be excused to go to the bathroom and come back and it was no big deal.

But one day, in the middle of some lecture the teacher was giving, the urge to use the bathroom hit me like a sack of bricks to the face. It was so sudden that, without thinking, I jumped up from my seat and raised my hand.

At this point, I am more aware of my bladder than I am of what I’m doing. I know that asking to go to the bathroom (the whole “May I” instead of “Can I” question correction thing was so annoying, you remember that?) was a question; and when you asked questions you had to raise your hand.

THE SUPERMAN EFFECT

Alright, so I’m sure I’m not the first person that this has happened  to, but I thought I’d rant about it anyway.

Actually, this is going to be a two part rant. Part 1 is about my lack of eyesight abilities, part 2 about the superman effect.

PART 1 – I CAN’T SEE

As a kid, I don’t remember gradually losing my eye sight… even though it probably was gradual. According to my memory, it happened in the matter of a week.

First I recall my teacher coming up to me and asking me if I was having a lot of trouble looking at the board, cause apparently I was squinting my eyes. Then in my phys. ed. class the following day we had like some eye vision test thing. It wasn’t random, they did it every year, but this year they sent me home with a note. Then I remember my dad driving me to the optometrist and telling me that I needed glasses.

Now, my dad has worn glasses since the beginning of dad history. So, it was explained to me that crap eyesight was passed down to me by the biological miracle that is genetics. So, I was kind of always destined to wear glasses. At some point, one way or another, my vision would start to deteriorate, and I’d have to get glasses. There’s no way to out run fate kids…especially when you can’t see where you’re going.

After the eye exam, I waited patiently with my dad in this museum of glasses. They came in all shapes, sizes, colors, it was crazy overwhelming. I have always been very indecisive, so my dad helped pick out my first pair. They were this kind of light brown, very circular shaped, pair of glasses. I was excited to try them on.

Okay, so here’s the thing. Before I got glasses, I had no idea that I had crooked ears. SURPRISE – I know now.

Even worse, because I had never had glasses before, I wasn’t used to having to keep tabs on their location all the time.  So one day I accidentally sat on them…and made them even more crooked.

Yeah. I had to go to school looking like that.

These glasses weren’t doing me any favors man, my nerd factor just exponentially skyrocketed.  Silver-lining – I could see with crystal clarity the looks of pity on the faces of my peers.

It’s the little things in life…

Anyway, as my eyes slowly started to decompose in my skull, my eye sight started getting progressively worse. I’d go back and get new pairs of glasses over the course of my life. Here’s a quick recap of the pairs I’ve owned:

I guess I was never really into loud or bright colors. Also, I didn’t discover contact lenses until I was like…17, so until then I had to always choose colors that would match the majority of my wardrobe.

These days glasses are cool and hip. I see kids running around with frames that don’t even have lenses. ARE YOU MOCKING ME CHILDREN? Why couldn’t glasses have been cool when I was growing up?

Anyway, I complain some more about being blind in one of my previous posts.  But what I really want to get to, is part 2 of this post, because I’ve got some rants to unleash.

PART 2: SUPERMAN EFFECT

I think I’ve had this conversation with a couple of people who wear glasses before. It’s the Superman effect.

Okay so everyone knows (the audience) that Superman is Clark Kent; but no one in Metropolis would ever be able to finish that puzzle. Makes you wonder, like, they could have done anything to Superman – ANYTHING – and these Metropolites would totally buy it.

The thing is that, in the real world, this happens all the time.

On several different occasions, I have introduced myself to someone without my glasses and if I ran into them again with my glasses they would re-introduce themselves to me.

The other thing that happens to me is that people will call me another name. I’ll show up to class one day with my glasses off, the professor calls me by my given name, no problems. I show up the next day with my glasses on, suddenly I’m “Melissa.”

FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THE GALAXIES IN THIS UNIVERSE, WHY AM I ALWAYS MELISSA? SERIOUSLY. Was there a memo that went out about how if you forget my name the automatic default is Melissa? Where did you even come up with that! Is everyone in on this? People who have never met each other, that I have met separately, have mistakenly called me Melissa.

YEAH I MAY LOOK DIFFERENT, CAUSE THERE’S AN OBJECT SITTING ON MY FACE – BUT NOT THAT DAMN DIFFERENT.

What is it about my glasses that makes people think I’m a completely different person?

I’ve heard of the Doorway Effect, where when you walk through a doorway you subconsciously forget about whatever it was that you were doing. Maybe glasses are the same way. Maybe when I put on my glasses, its like a reverse doorway effect – people who see me subconsciously forget who I am. My glasses open a realm of random forgetfulness.

The reverse doorway effect wipes away my identity when the glasses situate themselves on my face. To outsiders who may have known me, their memory of me becomes erased. This has to be the reason why people don’t recognize me…IT HAS TO BE.

What do you guys think about all this? Can you relate to any of it? Or is this just something I’m cursed with… TELL ME I’M NOT THE ONLY ONE.