I must be insane

"Are you insane!?" I asked my mum (in Cantonese), after she proposed that I spend the afternoon of Christmas Eve at Pak 'n Save with her. Shopping at the busiest supermarket chain in the country, during the busiest day of the year, can only lead to trolley rage, sky-high blood pressure and plans for emigration.

My mum took offense at having her mental capacity questioned.

Nevertheless, I ended up realising that I'll need to buy fresh produce for the fresh fruit salad I am making for Christmas lunch - meaning that I will end up in a supermarket on Christmas Eve anyway. But I insisted on visiting a far less crazy-busy supermarket, and at a far quieter time.

So she got her way - sort of - in the end.

Shouting

It's a situation I find very difficult; my mum is humungously deaf, but refuses to try a hearing aid. She would rather that the rest of us just talk to her more loudly, but gets really offended when she perceives that we're shouting at her. Well, I am anyway - partly because she can't hear me when I don't, partly because having to repeat myself in increasing volume, makes me grumpy.

Oh, if only she weren't so stubbornly negative about the whole idea. She knows people who have hearing aids, you see, and they tell her that they are a waste of money. The audiologist says that hearing aid effectiveness depends on several factors - how much you're willing to spend on one, how motivated you are to make a habit of wearing it, and the unique characteristics of your own hearing problem. Oh, if only my mum had friends who successfully wore their aids, people who weren't too stingy to go for the top models, and who were still on speaking terms with her (my mum seems to fall out with people on the merest of perceived grievances).

Oh, if only I don't become as deaf and as stubborn as that, when I get to 80. Thought I probably will - genetics is as good as fate.