Celebration Of The Matriarch Through Gluttony

By Oscar Barajas, NewsTaco

I am reminded that Mother’s Day (the real one) was celebrated on Thursday the 10^th. This holiday was a particularly hard one to celebrate in our household. My mother was the kind of woman that would not want you to make a fuss over her but at the same time would be the first to criticize any lack of effort. She was content with the same gift every year. All she wanted was a nice meal with the family and an envelope filled with money. My mother always hated gift certificates. First, she would disregard them because they were not cash, but secondly and most importantly she would become angered because she considered gift certificates to be inconsiderate suggestions as to where she should be spending her money.

Mother’s Day was the day where we all put our political ideologies aside and celebrated the woman who had given so much of herself. Even my dad would abstain from drinking on Saturday, so that he could be as fresh as a daisy and tolerate my sister and me. We all knew that we had to go to church and endure 50 minutes of being told we were going to hell, 6 minutes of salvation, and 4 minutes of community events. We were also reminded that if we gave a little bit more to the collection plate, the church would be able to provide air conditioning rather than rely on those heavy fans that looked like they came off a set from a silent movie.

After church, we all shuffled from one frying pan and into another frying pan: my father’s Crown Victoria, with the kind of windows that would roll down with little or no guarantee they would roll back up. My mother considered Hometown Buffet to be a nice meal, even though the rest of us would protest and hope she would reconsider. She had always enjoyed buffets because they offered so many choices, none of us could possibly complain about a meal the buffet didn’t have. If we wanted burgers, Hometown Buffet had them. If we wanted pizza, Hometown Buffet had them. I’m sure if had an appetite for baby seal served in a white elephant’s trunk, Hometown Buffet would have found a way to serve it.

 The problem with Hometown Buffet was not the menu selection but rather the timing. It seemed that my mother was not alone in her love for buffets. Mothers would guilt their unwilling families to stand in line for upwards of two hours in order to enter. The four of us would stand there waiting for what seemed to be eons because it always seemed that the Buffet only had tables for sets of three or five. I could feel myself aging in line. All the while, my mother talked about the kind of salad she was going to get.

When we eventually sat down, we were warned that we had to eat: there would be consequences if we came back with a tray filled with cheesecake. The first unwritten rule was that you had to have at least two servings before you were allowed to get a dessert. The second one was that you had to have something green on your plate that was not Jell-o. The mariachi would play in the background and my mother would stuff my pockets and her purse with sugar cookies and chicken drumsticks wrapped in about a million napkins – claiming that it was for the alley cats that kept my dad company while he read the morning paper.

 Those are the days I wish I could still have. We do not go to Hometown Buffet as much anymore since my parents passed on. Whenever we do go, it is usually on a whim. The weird thing is, the unspoken rules are still observed. My sister and I still make two rounds before attacking the dessert stand. We sit around telling the same stories, whether it is about my mom’s non-tipping policy or my dad making us claim we were five years younger than we actually were so that we could save 50 cents a head; they’re all memories that make mother’s day worth remembering.