Mom Hates Reggie

Scene: Mom and I at Perkins. For some reason, the subject of Reggie came up.

"Why do you loan him money?" Mom said, syrup dribbling from her wagging waffle fork. "You're just a doormat for him. You're just like me. A doormat for the world."

"Yes, but what would Jesus of Nazareth do?"

"I don't like hearing about this man."

"About Jesus?"

"About this Reggie person."

"He's a nice guy, actually. Reggie, I mean. On Thursday morning, when it was raining so bad, we had a bunch of people standing outside the doors before we were open and Reggie wanted to let them in. I told him no, of course. We open at ten. Those are the rules, damnit."

"I think you should have let them in."

"So you're agreeing with Reggie."

"No, I just think it was really bad out, and you should have let them in. How early were they?"

"About twenty minutes. Fifteen."

"Yes, you should have let them in. It's only fifteen minutes."

"But at what point is it okay not to let them in? Twenty-five minutes? An hour?"

"Fifteen minutes is okay. You should have let them in."

"You're such a pushover, Mom. You'd just let people use you like a doormat."

"You're just like me."

"No, you're just like me. But what's so wrong with me being like you? Or vice versa?"

"It's not good."

"I know, because you don't like yourself. So to sum up: you hate yourself. And you hate Reggie."

"I never said I hated Reggie."

"Mom, look at the title of this post..." I pointed up. "Yeah?"

"What in the world are you talking about?"

"Aw, just eat your damn waffles."