On support: Part II

Mami, the thrift store employee and the life long ban.

It’s very rare that I capture a moment where Mami and I get to an ugly place and work backwards out of it. And this is why I felt it was important, with the help of my therapist, to share this moment with y’all. So many of you have said, “I love you and Mami’s relationship.” Welp, here’s the ugly side of it!!!! But, it also kinda reveals why I am the way I am. Why I sometimes regress and communicate in the way I learned how to communicate via my familial unit. And how - I hope - I’ve evolved and acquired some of the tools and language necessary to promote healing. To give my mom the vocabulary - because any one of you from an immigrant background or the child of someone who’s second language is English, or hell…comes from a background that promotes self-healing through substance abuse - is gonna understand that we don’t always get to have this dialogue with our parents. Learning those tools isn’t difficult, but exercising them in the real world is…whew!!! A fucking challenge.

If you were there, you saw it on an episode of “The Maisonets,” during our trial run.

Context: Mami had gotten herself into a disagreement the day prior. She set a boundary, regarding social distancing, and the employee who received this boundary did not like it. Mami could have set the boundary in a less rudimentary way, true, but setting the boundary was entirely valid and necessary. “Stay six-feet back.” The manager tried to engage with Mami, and being the Cancer that Mami is, Mami just shut down and went into the shell. The manager tried to pull Mami into her office and Mami responded, “I don’t think so,” as she walked out of the store. The manager followed Mami outside (!!!!) to inquire who she was with, if Mami understood what the manager was saying, if Mami “spoke English,” and that Mami was banned from the thrift store. Mami was being told all of this while Mami sat on a bench and Mami never spoke another word after “I don’t think so.”

I had no idea what was going on. I was in an entirely different part of the store. In my zone. There was an overhead page in the store for “anyone with an older women in a sparkly silver sweater.” When I walked up to the front of the store, the employee who had the confrontation with Mami and the supervisor confronted me. I mean, they swooped in on my ass and definitely were not anywhere near six or three or even two feet away from me. I was beyond uncomfortable. I asked if Mami was ok and I looked out the front door to see Mami sitting outside on a bench. Seeing her sitting there with that look on her face broke my damn heart and I immediately went into protective mode.

The employee said that Mami had “shoved,” “clotheslined,” and “swung” a metal office book organizer at her. And I said, “be careful with the words you choose to communicate with. To “shove” means to push and to push means battery. And if [Mami] swung something at you, that’s means assault. So, if we called the law enforcement right now, could my mother be accused of assault and battery? Or, are you just exaggerating?” The employee proceed to stumble and bumble and I stopped her and said, “yes or no?” She turned and walked away. The supervisor said it was in her best interest to protect her employees and that Mami was banned from the store. However, I was welcomed to return.

I was infuriated that Mami had been done an injustice based off some hearsay from someone who changed her story three times during the time I inquired what had happened. And for someone who was wearing a mask with her nose exposed, btw. Small observation.

We left. I pulled over about a mile down the road and asked Mami what happened. She explained.

Mami setting boundaries on social distancing is totally and entirely valid. How she handled the scenario, by shutting down and subsequently leaving me to handle it, is not. She is not a person to say “I’m sorry.” No one in my family is! And Mami allowing me to communicate that openly with her, without saying things like “Don’t talk to me like that/you’re too loud/calm down,” is what also allows us to process, heal, move on and become closer.

What do you wish you could talk to your parents about?

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If you want to contribute to mami’s f’ing expensive ass mukbangs or Dollar Tree visits:

Venmo: @illya-maiso

If anyone of Mami’s Maniacs would like to send Starbucks gift cards or trinkets to Mami, she now has a P.O.Box.

Mami Maisonet
5960 S Land Park #222
Sacramento, CA 95822