"Malcolm’s Job" Original Air Date 12/07/03
Chapter 506

Mom was on another one of her mightier than thou kicks so she gave us this whole spiel about growing up and having more maturity, independence, etc. We thought we were getting a car, instead she made Reese and I both get jobs.

She got me a job at the store, with her! Are you kidding?! I begged her to find another job, but she wouldn’t budge. There’s got to be some law against her – somewhere.

Now to go from bad to worse – I had to go to store training. These morons somehow think that stacking toilet paper and mopping aisles requires a skill. Weird thing I found out though, they call mom “beans.” What’s that all about?

I was then set up with this fat guy, Albert. My BIG job? Flattening boxes. Of course it took me 20 minutes to revolutionize the place, except in this moron world I evidently “broke the rules” and was reprimanded for it. These people are insane. And to top it off, Mom took the store’s side.

Hey, it gets even better! Reese got a job at a butcher shop and he makes 5 times what I make and loves every minute of it. So I stayed up all night to come up with the perfect comeback to Mom for taking the store’s side.

I busted into the store on my day off and what did I see? I caught Mom SMOKING! She’s a liar and a smoker! She then asked me for a favor to keep it a secret from Dad. I agreed, but only because she treated me like a human being. She even thanked me.

Oh, but then when I got written up at work again, Mom hung me out to dry! That was it. Time for payback. Screw me once: shame on me. Twice: shame on you. Three times? Well, normally I’d say go to war – but what was really bothering me was that I had no idea who my mother was. This woman who taught me all the differences between right and wrong was a total hypocrite. So I called her on it.

We finally had a real talk, which was great. Even if the end result was that Mom will always be Mom and no matter what I say, do, or how much I grow up, none of that will ever change.