I have a perfect mother. Not because she's perfect herself, but because she demands that I be perfect.
I came third in my grade, and she gave me a merciless sneer. “What's there to be proud of? You're only third. You don't get to eat for three days. You don't deserve it!”
I got 148 in math, and she screamed, “Is your head full of shit? You could lose those two points? Get on your knees outside. Don't get up until I say so.”
Then, while practicing the violin, I accidentally cut my finger and messed up in a competition, so I didn't come in first.
In the dead of winter, she stripped me naked, threw me into a freezing basement, and left me to freeze to death.
When I woke up again, I had become my grandmother. Mom, this time I'll treat you the way you treated me.
