The March Hare

I heard a very telling story about my grandmother the other day. My grandfather had been asked to go to a salesmen's convention and either couldn't or wouldn't take my grandmother along. So, smiling sweetly, she offered to pack his bag for him, saying that she understood perfectly and would miss him terribly while he was away. She then sewed all of his pajama legs together, packed her nylon stockings instead of his socks, put a big patch on the back of his swim trunks, and wrapped a block of chocolate flavored laxatives in a Hershey's wrapper. "He fluttered the whole weekend," my grandmother said, and laughed.
All the women in my family are destined to be mean. It's just what happens. There's nothing anyone can do about it, and even if you start out all nice and sweet and not giving people diarrhea, someday you will. My mom is so mean that her husbands and boyfriends have all found themselves, at some point or another, cowering in a corner with their arms thrown protectively over their heads. My sister's mean genes haven't surfaced yet; I think she's waiting for elderly cantankerousness as her cover. And I'm getting meaner every day. This morning, my boyfriend woke me very sweetly, asking if I would please make some of my famous breakfast wraps. My eyes flew open, I sat straight up, and screamed "I am not getting out of bed just so I can go to the grocery store!" At which point he dropped the nice act, too. But really, shouldn't I have been more trusting?