Mother taught me to fry an egg when I was fifteen.
\nShe was a terrible cook. She considered all forms
\nof housework domestic burdens cast upon her by
\nSociety, whose rules and customs she did not respect.
\nA working mother of four, she bore the brunt of the rise
\nof our war-honed agri-business, its flatulent hype,
\nstandardization, shrink-wrap packaging, early stages
\nof the nefarious fast-food industry whose calculated
\nsuper-sizing perpetrates on humans what some
\nobject to on ducks and geese for the sake of\u00a0foie gras.
\nYet she was right about eggs. And this egg lesson was
\nthe first of three ordained once she saw the incipient effects
\nof pubescence on me.\u00a0The second, to sew a button.
\nThe third carries me to this moment: ten-finger typing.
\n\u201cThis way,\u201d she opined, \u201cwhen you end up with a woman,
\nyou’ll need her for nothing other than herself\u201d.
\nThe worldly reader will have noticed: Mother omitted
\nanother want which enslaves many men to women.
\nThere was nothing, she knew, she could teach to help that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mother taught me to fry an egg when I was fifteen. She was a terrible cook. She considered all forms of housework domestic burdens cast upon her by Society, whose rules and customs she did not respect. A working mother of four, she bore the brunt of the rise of our war-honed agri-business, its flatulent … <\/p>\n