The house seemed oddly quiet that afternoon. The mother went about her normal tasks, picking up laundry and cleaning up as she went. The hallway windows let in sunlight. As she passed past her thirty-five-year-old daughter’s room, a small humming sound broke the silence. It was steady, repetitious, and strangely like a machine. She stopped and scowled. She was curious if the ceiling fan was acting up again or if her daughter had finally decided to clean.
She couldn’t help but want to know. She knocked once, but no one answered, so she slowly opened the door. When she realized what was in front of her, she froze in her tracks. Her kid jumped a little, and her cheeks grew scarlet, which showed that she was having a private moment. “What the heck are you doing?” the mother exclaimed, astonished and confused.
“Mom, I’m thirty-five and still live at home. This is the closest I’ll ever get to a husband,” the daughter stated with a sigh. She didn’t feel horrible about it.
There was simply the silent hum in the room. The mother opened her mouth, but then she closed it again. She finally said she “needed some air” and left the room, acting like nothing had happened. She walked around the house in a daze for the rest of the day, not sure whether to laugh or call a family meeting.
A few days later, the mother was out doing errands and the father was in the kitchen making coffee when he heard the same low humming sound again. It sounded like it was coming from underneath. He set down his coffee and went down to the basement to see what was going on. He halted at the corner. There was his kid again, utterly calm and not seeming to care that Dad had come out of nowhere. “What are you doing?” he asked, his voice something between angry and shocked.
His daughter repeated the same thing to him that she had said to her mother: “Dad, I’m thirty-five, still living at home, and this is the closest I’ll ever get to a husband.”
The dad stayed there for a while, feeling thoroughly defeated by how she had answered. He wiped his brow and murmured something about how expensive life was. Then he trudged back upstairs, knowing that certain things were better left alone.
A few days later, the house was quiet again until the familiar hum came again, this time from the den. The mother, who was now both angry and suspicious, went after the sounds. When she opened the door, she stopped in her tracks. Her spouse was sitting on the couch and watching a football game on TV. And there, next to him on the couch, was the buzzing thing, happily humming away.
She couldn’t believe what she was witnessing. “What are you doing now?” she inquired.
He said, “I’m watching the game with my son-in-law,” and didn’t look away from the TV.
The mother was shocked. She remained there for a few seconds, torn between laughing and yelling. After that, she switched out the light and left. The constant hum followed her down the hall as she shook her head.
The father was able to play his game in peace for the remainder of the night. The soft tremor filled the room like the weirdest commentary soundtrack ever. In a house where everyone had their own strange ways of dealing with life’s little disappointments, it was somehow the perfect, goofy end to an already great week.