The fear that dare not speak its name

To young women everywhere: You're terrified to neck with that devastatingly handsome fellow because, if he nicks you with one of his incisors, you may be doomed to live in the twilight forever. You can't sleep for fear of an imminent zombie coup. You're wasting your precious minds dreading metamorphoses that have only a 50% chance of occurring, while ignoring a catastrophic change that will happen with 100% certainty. You will, whether you like it or not, turn into your mother. Behold my story: -It started with the shoes. My mother had walking shoes and sitting shoes. If she was going to a friend's house for mah jongg, she wore her walking shoes to get there and carried her sitting shoes in a special shoe bag to be put on once there. The walking shoes were lace-up oxfords with a low heel. I would rail, "Ma, how can you go out in those old lady shoes." Ma:"They're comfortable." All summer she wore her buffalo hide sandals--platform sandals with broad tan straps crisscrossed in front with a thinner strap that buckled around the ankle. Clodhoppers. Hideous. I was mortified to be seen with those feet. At age 30, I had those feet. I began wearing sneakers to walk to and from work and one of the ten pair of fashionable shoes I kept under my desk to wear at work. I had walking shoes and sitting shoes. Two years ago, I saw my mother's summer clodhoppers in the window at Harry's shoes, only now they were called Kork-ease and cost $140. I had to have them. They looked so comfortable. -Next it was not wanting to acquire possessions that would "show dirt." Growing up, my kitchen floor was dark green linoleum speckled with dots of different colors. The flooring had come with our rent controlled apartment and my mother never changed it, because it didn't "show dirt." When I moved into my current apartment and renovated the kitchen I selected a white formica countertop speckled with irregular black and gray specks. It is quite ugly, but does not "show dirt." Most people think I have two dozen black tops because I'm a sophisticated New Yorker. The real reason is that they don't "show dirt." -Then it was not wanting to use something "good," because I might ruin it. My mother had the "good" china. It was beautiful Bavarian bone china for "company." Although we did sometimes have company, I don't recall the guests ever being important enough to warrant the "good" china. I do use my mother's "good" china for my everyday dishes, but I have never worn the "good" (translation "expensive") pink leather jacket I bought 5 years ago, because it might get ruined. Ditto for the "good" suede shoes and matching"good" suede bag. -It continued with small changes which initially went unnoticed. I stopped buying clothes that needed to be dry cleaned. I started washing everything--silk blouses, cashmere sweaters, wool gabardine pants--rather than "waste money" on the dry cleaners. Was I channeling my mother? Hadn't she, when wash and wear came in, stopped giving my father's shirts to the Chinese laundry so as not to "waste money?" I am using the toast-r-oven my parents got from opening a bank account at Lincoln Savings Bank in 1970, even though the coils on the top don't work, and I have to flip the toast. Why "waste money" on a new toaster oven when this one still works, sort of . Is this my mother again, or is this my own loose screw? -And now, the finale. Did you read about the Korean elderly who went to McDonald's, ordered coffee and sat there for four hours. Ok, that's not me. I'm not Korean and my mother wasn't Korean.(Not that there's anything wrong with being Korean.) But what my mother sometimes did, was take her 1/2 sandwich to McDonald's , order coffee and eat her lunch there. When she told me, I was appalled. Tacky tacky. Worse than old lady shoes. But now I've done it. With my turkey burger. But only when it's raining.