She yammered on endlessly about rice or potatoes, rice or potatoes, rice or potatoes. Standing six or seven steps from the second floor landing, her doughy hand grabbing the handrail as if it might suddenly leap from her talons and scamper helter-skelter into a dark hiding place, somewhere damp and sweltering and frightening, like Florida. Or a day spa. Or a day spa in Florida.
"Whatever ma." It sounded desperate, a stop-your-yapping, I-can't-take-it-anymore voice.
She ignored his desperate plea and kept right on yapping.
Through bloodshot eyes, Antonio stared at his mother the way Jerry Falwell might stare at naked pictures of the Virgin Mary doing jumping jacks in a lumber yard. He chewed absently on his thumbnail as she prattled on relentlessly, something about boiling or frying or some internal chicken organ.
"I'm going to ram this stapler through your eye if you don't shut up!" On cue, he brandished his stapler menacingly.
Her eyes twitched bird-like in the recesses of her face. She paused for a moment, just a split-second really, before her narrow lips continued flapping. Antonio leaned back, beaten, and began stapling the webs of his fingers to the desk.
"Arroz ou batatas?" she asked, in her native Portuguese. Rice or potatoes?
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3 comments:
I'm often asked to make that choice at family dinners. My answer is always the same. Mais vinho.
Idéia boa, Shora.
ok it must be a portuguese thing. all i know is esparai...and i'm not too sure how to spell it either. ;)
cute. very cute.
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