Nature vs. Nurture?

My mother is giving me grief about my last post. She doesn't know how to operate a mouse, but my BROTHER does, and he's clearly out to get me. This will come back to haunt him when next Christmas rolls around. I'll be DAMNED if I will run interference for him as the egg nog is passed around and our mother starts questioning him about when he is going to settle down! Anyway, my mother will not let me rest until I retract my neurotic label. (See? Only the truly neurotic would do that....) Sooooooooo, I will ignore her until she goes away and start bashing my mother-in-law, as well! Ha!

I suppose I should be thankful that my mother simply suffers from slight paranoia (You better tell her I wrote "slight," Rob!) resulting from questionable farming tragedies. Poor Scott didn’t fair nearly so well. His mom has the great distinction of being a pyromaniac (which ironically fills me with a sort of envy because my mom was just the room mother for my fifth grade class—booooooooooooring.).

Scott’s mom has twice set the house on fire, melted the siding off the back of the house during a grilling “accident,” and once burned the garage to the ground (though she claims her first fire doesn’t count since the result was mostly smoke damage. I’m telling you, she is either a pyromaniac or a genius at getting home owner’s insurance to pay for her redecorating.).

I guess our mothers aren’t all that different, however. My mother taught me to fear, well, everything, while Scott’s mom taught him to fear all electric and gas kitchen appliances-- not to mention hair dryers, wood stoves, outdoor grills, and fireplaces. Together, Scott and I have become “The Crisis Couple” where Scott will suddenly sit up from reading his latest novel to question, “Honey, do you smell gas??” and I’ll stutter, “No, but my nose is a little stuffed. Grab the kids and the dog and call 9-1-1! No, not from the house phone! For the love of God, call from the neighbors’! This place could blow at any second!!”