Parents are just the worst! Especially moms. Ugh, it’s like: don’t. But something weird started happening last year that made me maybe reconsider constantly referring to my mom as a Bitchdragon: I’d get in a fight with her, and before I knew it, I’d wake up in her old friggen body, to learn some kind of lesson about compassion or something.
The first time it happened we’d just finished eating Chinese food in icy silence. She’d just told me that she didn’t think Beth was a “good influence” because she’s “been dabbling with Coke” and had gotten “suspended seven times this year,” so I threw my plate into the sink so hard that it shattered. When I woke up for school the next morning I was like holy shit I’m in my mother’s body. Yeah, that’s right—her old, weird 44-year-old gross body. As shocking as the experience was, I didn’t really learn my lesson until we’d Freaky Friday’d four more times that year.
The second time I switched bodies with my hard-working, single mom, it was because I’d told her she dressed like she’d given up on life. I didn’t even think this would be a body-switchable offense and it wasn’t even Friday, but sure enough the next day I found myself with my own brain and personality but with my mother’s bad back (okay, so I guess I was in the wrong when she complained about it the other day and I told her to shut her whore mouth.) I was mostly just relieved when this one was over, hoping it wouldn’t happen again, until…
The next time I was so incredibly rude that the forces of nature magically swapped my body for my mother’s body was when she tried to tell me that it wasn’t her fault my dad left her for his SoulCycle instructor and I rolled my eyes and said “gag me with a spoon.” Then I was like “ughh not again” as I immediately saw the world through her shitty, wrinkly eyes. I think the reason we had a Freaky Friday episode this time was because not only was I insensitive and disrespectful, but I’d borrowed a super old phrase and the universe was just like, nope. Still, I learned like, almost nothing.
By the time the fourth swaparoo came around, I was almost used to living in my mom’s old bag of bones. Sure, it made for really anxious days spent wondering what embarrassing things she was saying while she was in my body at school, but by now it was almost a better punishment than getting my iPhone taken away. One bonus: I finally understood why she drank so much wine at night—turns out it takes a ton of that shit to knock out someone with my mom’s tolerance. Also I got to drive her car.
The last time it happened I knew we were gonna switch carcasses the minute, “You’re so embarrassing on Facebook; you should just kill yourself” came out of my mouth. Sure enough at the strike of midnight I woke up and realized I was reading Fifty Shades of Gray and enjoying it. Yep—mom bod. Ugh. Still didn’t learn shit.
So what did I take away from all of this dark magic that kept happening over and over again? I guess mostly that this was probs some huge scheme to get us to us walk a mile in each others’ shoes and come out on the other side with more respect and understanding for one another. Or some bullshit. I dunno. But I do know that the next time it happens I’m gonna call the school and tell them my daughter needs to park in the teacher’s parking lot ’cause of a leg disorder or some shit. I think that’s empathy.
