Like/Love and Puns in the Past

Michael Patterson, April's celebrated older brother, has shared a most informative post, which I will share below:

Aprilbot,

Robotic little sis. Since you are the newest member of the Patterson family, I think it would be good to give a little history of other machines which used to work for the Pattersons over the years. For example, my mother used to have a room completely devoted to sewing and even called it her sewing room, well after she had gotten to the point where she had completely stopped sewing. That room is today my son’s room.

Sometimes, when I go into my son’s room to watch him destroy some toy of his or to carve his name in the wall with a kitchen knife, my mind wanders to back when I was his age and I was in the same room. My mother was there in front of the sewing machine, a device without which, my mother would have simply called the room a place where she would have liked to done sewing.

Since you are a robot, you may not know this but, there used to be a piece of furniture called a sewing table, where the woman doing the sewing could position a chair close to the sewing machine and this made feeding the material through the sewing machine much easier. My mother did not have one of these tables. In fact, she used to pick a chair which sat very low compared to where the sewing machine was, in an effort to cause back strain, which she said was a great help to show suffering.

At the time I didn’t understand it. I simply thought mom was in a bad mood every time she was sewing. However, on one particular occasion, I was feeling vulnerable and I didn’t know why. Perhaps it was in anticipation of the angst I would develop as a part of becoming a well-known author, perhaps it was part of growing up, or perhaps it was because I saw Lawrence Poirier’s mother tell him she loved him, and I wondered why it is that my parents never did the same. I determined to ask her directly. When I got into the sewing room, and saw mom was busy with sewing, I played with unraveling a spool of thread until I could find a moment to ask her my important question.

At last the moment came. I got right beside my mom, so she could hear me over the Bzzzz and Grind of the sewing machine and touched her arm and said, “Do you love me, ma?” This got no response.

So, I tried again, this time grabbing part of her sweater. I said, “Mama? Do you LOVE me?” This time mom did reply, by turning her face a bright red and saying, “GRUNT”, and closing her scissors, in what I recognize today as a preparation for turning scissors into a stabbing weapon. Such subtleties of communication were lost on my young Patterson mind.

In fact, such was the obliviousness of my youthful state, even when mom prepared her right leg to kick me away, I poked on that same leg and said, “Ma? Ma? MA…Do you LIKE me then, ma?” I thought I was making the question easier to ask, by downgrading it to just a “like” question. Mom’s response this time was to say, “Mumble **? That was a sign she had realized the question had been downgraded to the point where she would have to answer it.

Then mom, completely red-faced and flush, gave me the answer. She said, “Yes! I’d LIKE you to get lost!” I was completely startled. “She made a joke on the word ‘like”?”, I thought. Now you see, robotic little sis, mom could have just as easily made that same joke using the word “love” as in “Yes! I’d LOVE you to get lost!”

However, as you will probably know from your programming, Pattersons never say, “I love you.” I was young and foolish and thought perhaps I was exempt from this aspect of our family tradition; so I burst out crying with a “WAAAH, which is a crying noise. Now, I know better. I think this is one of the reasons why you are a great asset to the Patterson family. We cannot say, “I love you” and mean it, so we never say it; in the same way it would be for you, if your programming allowed you to say those words.

As for mom, at the time, she thought to herself, “Something tells me I could have handled that better..” and she was right. The “like” pun is one of the weakest ones you can use. I am sure that in your robotic archives you can think of a better one. I hope you find this story instructive in your life as my youngest sister.

Love,
Michael Patterson

Thank you for sharing this, Michael. I can see that you applied the same writing talent to this message as you did to your novel, Stone Season. The engineers of the Johnston Institute For Better Living took the very important step of uploading the novel to my memory, so that I can discuss this fine piece as though I had actually read it. Michael, it is odd that April does not appreciate having an esteemed novelist in the family! If my programming allowed it, I would tell you that I love you!

Patterson, Elly has told me that I have been so good this weekend, she would like to reward me, only she cannot, because she is a Patterson. Instead, she says I should go over to the big house on Sharon Park Drive and care for Patterson, Meredith (age five years, two months, 27 days) and Patterson, Robin (age three years, two months, five days). I told her, "Patterson Matriach, do not fret. It is my duty and my pleasure to provide excellent care for the youngest members of the Patterson clan. After all, your eldest son Michael needs time to focus on his writing unencumbered. And your daughter-in-law Deanna needs time 'off' to bathe, shop, and have her bowl haircut trimmed every now and then." She threw here arms around me and cried, for some reason.

Elizabeth, that throw pillow you describe sounds exquisite. I cannot wait to see it! Maybe after I complete my babysitting assignment today, we can bake pies, cakes, cookies, brownies, blondies, snickerdoodles, and brioche, engage in "girl talk," and admire your needlepoint!

Aprilbot, substituting for wayward April Patterson