The Cradle

Upon entering my bedroom last night after many long weeks away, I was met once again with a nightmare. I have been plagued by this wooden disaster each time I've come home for the last year or so.

My room is always much as I've left it. Often there are little gifts or interesting articles that my mom has placed on my dresser while I'm gone for me to find when I return. But the happiness of these things is dwarfed by the bane of my home-life existence.

The Cradle.

Evidently my mother acquired about a year ago the very cradle in which I slept as a wee child. This is a fascinating piece of history to her. She remembers the time well. I, on the other hand, do not. As cradles have very little if any place in my life at this point in time, the cradle is simply a large, clumsy wooden contraption that takes up nearly half of my bedroom floor space.

Not to mention that it causes extreme nervousness on my part.

I may or may not have blogged about my mother's transformation into the marriage monster last Christmas. To recap, I'll simply say that two of my three Christmas gifts were marriage books. Also, when we went shopping, she mentioned several times over various little knick-knacks things such as, "Oh, wouldn't this be wonderful at a wedding reception?" or "Oh, why couldn't you be getting married so I could buy these candles for your wedding?" or "Wouldn't this make a great bridesmaids' gift?"

At this point in my life, comments like these, along with the marriage books, caused me to want to be sick. (I think perhaps having a boyfriend should be a precurser to having a husband, but this could just be me.) But I attributed her wedding woes to be because I was at precisely the same age at the time as she was when she married my dad. It could happen to anyone. I guess.

Now I'm wondering if the cradle is her subtle way of the continuation of the pressure and the hinting. For some reason, no matter where I find to stash it, the cradle simply cannot reside anywhere except for my room. She insists upon it. The basement is too damp. The guest room is too crowded. She hasn't really given me a reason why her room is unacceptable.

Is this some kind of psychological conditioning? I'm becoming like those people who tinfoil their windows so that aliens can't take over their brains. Maybe I'll use it as a coat rack. Perhaps I can make the cradle into a flower bed.

Do you think if I slept in it (seriously, this is a big cradle) she would get the hint that it should be removed, promptly?