I met my girlfriend’s mother last weekend. Saturday night, to be precise. Dinner, to be even more precise. At Montpelier’s Black Door.
If I could get the lust for pussy out of my DNA, I’d do it just so I wouldn’t have to meet anymore goddamn mothers of my girlfriends. And it only gets worse with age.
Because the older I get, the older my girlfriends get. I don’t, you know, have the money or the house or the acreage to attract the young sweethearts. It seems stock brokers have an edge on house painters in that regard. Who knew?
The mothers of older unmarried women are an awkward bunch. They’re kind of like women in their late-30s who haven’t yet answered the biological beckoning to produce a little rug rat of their own. They’re anxious. They’re pushy. They’re nosey. And, worse, they deny that they’re anxious, pushy and nosey.
They only turn worse when the topic they’re most interested in is finally broached: Have I ever been married?
Because the last thing mommy dearest wants for their precious little (and unmarried and not-so-young) daughter is to be some snarky painter’s next relationship victim. It’s funny how they can ignore their own matrimonial nightmares while harshly assessing mine.
The Black Door seemed like a good place to break the ice with the mommy figure. The food is passable – if not too small-plated-and-hip – and the lighting is soft and dark.
The only difficulty is running the gauntlet of the better-than-you set that usually occupies the tony bar. Yeah, you know the types, the heads of every Montpelier-based eco-group, the lobbyists for anyone who will pay them more than they’re worth, and the trust-funders who’ve come to the age where they’re a whole lot less concerned about hiding the fact that they are doing nothing but spending a lot.
I’ve tried to stay out of the drama surrounding The Black Door. All I know is that it’s a Jeff Jacobs building, which, translated for those not from the area, means drama. Lots of drama. Jacobs is a petty little prick with more than a little Napoleon complex. Um, Jeff, it’s Montpelier.
But meet the mom went as well as could be expected. After getting over the chill created by my one-divorce confession, she warmed up a bit. The wine did its trick for us, flushing our faces and lubricating the awkwardness long enough to avoid a major incident.
Sure, there’s always the shit about, “how long do you want to be a painter?” But I’m used to that. And she was just groovy enough to encourage me to become “an arty painter.”
“You know,” she said, “like on canvasses and things.”
And things?
Wine, please.
But my girlfriend’s still talking to me so I must have gotten the okay.
I think I might just break up with her today.