Do I Really Hate Lazy Susans?
My mother has strong opinions. A lot of them. And, like most children of opinionated parents, I’ve internalized them over the years, and never thought much of it. But it came to me lately that I might be wrong to do that, as I was moving into my new house. I was loading stuff onto the lazy susan in my corner cupboard, grumbling to my boyfriend about how dumb they are, when he asked me, “Why do you hate lazy susans so much?”
I just stared at him, open-mouthed. I had no idea. I’d never actually had one. I shouldn’t have had an opinion on lazy susans at all. But there it was, a deep and abiding hatred, living in my brain next to my rejection of Kool-Aid, Top Ramen, white bread, and Mountain Dew. None of these opinions were my own — they were my mother’s. And yet, I felt them as strongly as anything I’ve arrived at through my own experience. (Such as my hatred for Skittles, powdered donettes, and wine coolers.)
My mother’s hatred of lazy susans is still a mystery to me — perhaps she’d been trapped in one as a child — but the rest of her list is easier to understand. As a child of working-class parents, she has always been acutely aware of class standing, and every single one of those items represented poverty to her. Or, as she put it, “Only white trash eats that stuff.”
