LYDlADAVIS
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rubber nose from the living room.
The Grouch is exasperated. Old Mother has been criticizing him
again. He says to her, "You should have married a man who didn't
drink or smoke. And who also had no hands or feet . Or arms or legs."
The Grouch is exasperated again. Again, Old Mother has been criti–
cizing him. This time he says, "If I changed that, you'd only find some–
thing else to criticize. And if I changed that, then something else would
be wrong."
Old Mother tells the Grouch she feels ill. She thinks she may soon
have to go into the bathroom and be sick. They have been quarrelling,
and so the Grouch says nothing. He goes into the bathroom, however,
and washes the toilet bowl, then brings a small red towel and lays it on
the foot of the bed where she is resting.
Weeks later, Old Mother tells the Grouch that one of the kindest
things he ever did for her was to wash the toilet bowl before she was
sick. She thinks he will be touched, but instead, he is insulted.
"Can't you agree with me about anything?" asks the Grouch.
Old Mother has to admit it: she almost always disagrees with him.
Even if she agrees with most of what he is saying, there will be some
small part of it she disagrees with.
When she does agree with him, she suspects her own motives: she
may
agree with him only so that at some future time she will be able to
remind him that she does sometimes agree with him.
Old Mother has her favorite armchair, and the Grouch has his.
Sometimes, when the Grouch is not at home, Old Mother sits in his
chair, and then she also picks up what he has been reading and reads it
herself
Old Mother is dissatisfied with the way they spend their evenings to–
gether and imagines other activities such as taking walks, writing letters,
and seeing friends . She proposes these activities to the Grouch, but the
Grouch becomes angry. He does not like her to organize anything in his
life. Now the way they spend this particular evening is quarrelling over
what she has said.
Both the Grouch and Old Mother want to make love, but he wants
to make love before the movie, while she wants to make love either
during it or after. She agrees to before, but then if before, wants the
