Paula Light is the lovely hostess for The Monday Peeve, where we get to complain our guts out to make ourselves feel better.

Over the last week or so (since my mom and I have been off from work), my mom has been calling everyone she knows from her classmates in California to those in China. It’s like she’s looking to talk to anyone but me.

She also likes to talk loud over speakerphone so basically, I would hear the entire conversation.

One night last week, she was talking to a friend nearby. From the sound of it, that friend sounds like a lonely old lady. If I remember right, that friend is married to a 80-year-old man (about 20 years her senior) with a language barrier and nothing in common. She doesn’t drive and speak very little English. How she communicates with her husband is a big question mark in my mind.

Anyway, she and my mom talked while we were having dinner. On the phone, she kept saying, “bring your daughter over to play sometime.”

In my mind, I kept thinking, what daughter is she referring to? My mom only has one daughter – that’s me – and I don’t play. I’m nearing my mid-30’s who prefer to either be with nature or stay home and cuddle with a book. Just how old does she think I am?

Sadly, she’s not the only one of my mom’s friends who thinks of me as this little girl that my mom brings to her friend’s houses to “play”. The frustrating thing is she doesn’t try to correct them either. I asked my mom after the phone call that night, “Why does she think I want to go to her house to ‘play’?”

“She didn’t say that.” Mom responded.

What? “I know what I heard.” I talk to people on the phone for a living. I don’t think I would’ve misheard her conversation. Two days later, mom went to her friend’s house while I went hiking and I was thankful for that because I’ve been to that friend’s house before and I don’t want that experience again.