This may be why it's not a good idea for us to live together. Too much togetherness, methinks. Thank goodness Dwayne is out in the garage refurbishing his 1955 tractor.
I'm in the bathtub when Mum hollers.
"You'll have to come in. The radio's on. But the curtain is closed."
So in she trots to the bedroom (which is on the main floor with our bathroom ensuite) with a phone message for me. We chat about that for awhile, me in the tub, Mum in my bedroom, then she hears a buzzing coming from under the lampshade in the bedroom.
"You have a fly," she says.
"You have two flies," she adds.
My mother is obsessed by flies. Particularly with killing them.
"I'll give you two toonies if you kill them," I say. That's the price of one way through the toll booth on the Cobequid Pass and I know she's going to Truro tomorrow.
But she doesn't need the incentive.
"Don't look behind the furniture," she says.
"Don't YOU look behind the furniture," I answer. "But I need to see the corpses for proof."
"Oh, I have two bodies," Mum says. "I've just killed another fly for free."