Youthful Humiliation
For many years my mother and I were estranged.
I prickled when she was brought up in conversations. We just didn’t get on.
I wanted to move away from it all. To forget.
Every time I tried to tell her something that I felt was wrong or I knew or made good
sense, she would say “Don’t make sense.Make sausages.”
My father and her would laugh. I always thought they were laughing at me.
It’s an awful feeling to have your parents make fun of you like that.
“Don’t make sense, make sausages.”
How could I respond to that? I wasn’t making sausages.
I even missed my fathers funeral as we were estranged and I couldn’t face her.
Insane
I struggled with her as I grew up, really thinking she was insane.
I dismissed the things she used to say, she sounded like a mad woman to me.
“You can’t make sense out of nonsense.” I used to say to my friends.
I dropped everything when I got the call that she was dying.
My mother was the only family I had left.
Hospital sausages
She didn’t look good at all. Her breathing was slow and difficult,like our relationship.
“You never understood me, did you?” She said.
She was talkative and said did your father ever tell you I used to work in a sausage factory?
I cringed as it was back to sausages again.
She told me how her and my father for the first time.
It was low paid work, but who else doing low paid work has a choice?
My mother got on really well with her co-workers, and while she didn’t enjoy the job
she could see how it could be improved.
My mothers idea was to purchase a new grinder. It would enable them to process higher
quality meat. Those with a higher meat ratio and move into selling higher quality
sausages. It would also mean they could produce more sausages overall.
A large outlay at the start but the business could be far better in the long run.
The other workers encouraged her to speak up.
Each morning the boss would talk for five minutes, a pep talk, saying how the business
was doing or if any big orders were coming in.
One morning my mother spoke up.
The boss was not interested.
In a workplace its more about hierarchy and respect for authority.
A bad business will always ignore good ideas.
Some people need to assert their position in the hierarchy.
A couple of other workers joined in, saying it that it made sense.
The boss got really mad. He didn’t want to hear it. He shouted at them :
“Don’t make sense, make sausages.”
He stopped doing the pep talks after that.
It became a running joke amongst all the workers,
and was often repeated when the boss would make one of his foolish decisions.
New Day New Sausages
One day my mother went into work and the sausage production had changed.
They had adopted my mothers idea.
She noticed she was often asked to go into the bosses office, for no apparent reason.
He started to ask her advice on things.
One day the boss asked her out.
Regret and Relief
So, when my parents repeated the phrase to me and laughed they were just
remembering their time in the sausage factory.
The humiliation of being made fun of, which my father once felt, I had carried for all my
life.
I had been so wrong.
My mother looked at me and I think she saw the love in my eyes for the first time.
“Don’t make sense,son,” she said.
Our eyes filled up with tears.
“Make Sausages.” We said together, those wasted years falling away.
I still say the phrase even now.
It so ironic that selling the fridge magnets with my mother’s phrase on it is now my biggest form of income.
So it seems you can make sense and cents out of nonsense.
PS
Seriously? Don’t buy it.
A True Sausage
It is true.
I want you to know what it feels like to give up a lifetime of being wrong.
I want you to feel that gift of freedom my mother gave me,
To face the humiliations in your life that I did and let them go.
I want you to know that the story attached to my fridge magnet is unique.
Most of all, I want you to be able to say “Don’t Make sense not sausages” and know what it really means.
PPS
I want you to know there is a bulk discount on purchases of 500 or more.
Buy the magnets if you want.
Kidding !!!!!
It’s national Sausage week in the UK.
I emailed them to ask for some free sausages but they have yet to get back to me.
Latin Roots and the Birth of a new Capitalism.
You were just thinking yesterday – I hope Tim Willow comes up with a world first for his blog today.
Well, here it is.
The latin root for fish is PISC.
It stands for Post-ironical satirical capitalism, as embodied in the product above you and fitting for the Rebel Fish.
If you oppose certain aspects of capitalism,the way it relentlessly defines humans through what they buy, the irony is to sell a product not because you want to buy it but because you’re making an ironic statement about how stupid it is to buy such products.
Buying the product can therefore give you a longer feeling of self-satisfaction. That feeling that no one really gets you because you’re so smart.
If you were buying a product without irony, the joy of purchase would soon fade.
Using, PISC, you can get that long lasting feeling of smugness encapsulated in the fridge magnet above.
You really have to buy it to appreciate the irony.
I also toyed with the idea of calling it Post Ironic Satirical Hypocrisy.
You’re used to me talking PISH, right?
That joke only works if you’re Scottish.
Tim: This brought tears to my eyes. It was so powerful. I don’t know if I should hope it was true or not. I guess I hope you and mom had a reconciliation but am sad you hurt for so long. That’s if it’s true. Not making any assumptions here but seems like you are believable this time. :3 Nan
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Did you get there is a bulk discount for 500 magnets? (Partly true but exaggerated for fiction – the piece is sort of my way of showing that you can make sense out of nonsense – don’t make sense – make sausages 🙂 )
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I choose to believe this is a true story as well. Partly because my late mother and I spent many wasted years being estranged also.
That…
And the fact that it’s a damned fine phrase and needed an equally fine provenance.
❣
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(no reconciliation for me,long time ago) It is national sausage week in england and ‘Don’t make sense make sausages’ hopefully fits – so thanks for highlighting the phrase – now you have to start using it 🙂
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I look forward to trying it out on my husband, although he rarely makes sense so I’ll have to plan accordingly.
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Please use it 🙂 a blog reality mash up. I doubt he’d ever make sausages though
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Great advice, given the context. One of my former bosses and I used to joke about the line in (I think the original) Roots where the young man working int ht sawmill has a good idea and the older owners berates him for thinking. He says “I don’t pay you to think, I pay you to tote.” Some days my job was like that so some form of that statement would come my way, or be shot in his direction.
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Well I remember working 🙂 so some of the things parents can say can be as illogical as a boss. The words just being variations of ‘don’t think. Do what I tell you’. 🙂 – now Roots, that was a while ago 🙂
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“Her breathing was slow and difficult,like our relationship.” is one of the best lines I’ve seen in ages. Seriously, if I had any money I’d buy you a Ko-fi just for that line… 🙂
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Thank you, sort of the truth, you gotta say the line now 🙂
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Which one?
Don’t make sense. Make sausages?
Or the joke about three nuns and a cabbage?
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Get serious. Don’t make sense make sausages
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I don’t get serious very often, but just for you…
*steps up to the podium*
*clears throat*
*taps microphone*
“Don’t make sense. Make sausages.”
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It’s sad that sometimes we can misunderstand something so completely! It’s nice to be able to get that misunderstanding out of the way, before its too late, though!
Love the magnets! Hope your sales are good! 😂😂🍻
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yeh 🙂 thanks for joining in. Discounts on purchase of 500 or more. Remember to say it in your ordinary life at some point and let me know 🙂
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Love the explanation.
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it’s all true man 🙂 you have to start saying it now
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I love everything I read from you. You’re so prolific. You’re an amazing writer I don’t know what else to say I’m truly in awe of you and the way you write.
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Thank you 🙂 some of them take a long time but dont tell anyone 🙂 hope you join in future 🙂
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wow, this is a truly beautiful post. I really enjoy how you write.
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Thank you Natasha, glad you liked it. Hope to see you again. There’s a job offer at my spa tomorrow
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