I don't want to become my mom

I'm becoming my mother.\nI never thought this could happen to me. I always thought the old adage that you become your parents was an elaborate ruse to scare kids into teenage rebellion thus leading to an extreme loss of brain cells and ensuring the dominance of the old folks. \nTeenage rebellion. Sigh. Those were the good old days. Coming home 15 minutes after curfew. Skipping Sunday night church. Eating my dessert before my dinner. Okay, so maybe I wasn't much of a rebel. But, I am definitely doing a good job at becoming my parents, especially my mother.\nIt doesn't even make sense. I'm not even that much like my parents. They are both extremely personable, while I would have trouble starting a conversation with an inanimate object like flip flops. Not that I converse with flip flops, but I just wouldn't feel comfortable starting the conversation. "So, what's your major? Really. How interesting. Don't hear about shoes majoring in Anthropology too often."\nAll of this is quickly changing, though.\nI first noticed it the other day when I was in line at K-Mart and the elderly woman behind me asked me where I found the soap. Some genetic mutant inside of me, let's call him Steve, decides that now would be a wonderful time to start explaining to this woman the extreme hazards of anti-bacterial soap. \nThis is something my mother would do. You cannot make a comment about anything in her grocery cart unless you want to be dragged into a thirty-minute conversation. I still remember the time we went to buy my first razor. My mother insisted that the woman behind us inspect my peach fuzz. And all I could do was stand there and curse the day puberty was invented by a Gregorian monk named Willard.\nSo, I'm chiding this poor woman for not knowing that anti-bacterial soap is almost as bad as anthrax. I try to stop myself, but I can't. This woman MUST know the dangers of anti-bacterial soap!\nAnd this isn't even the worst thing.\nI am now talking to people from my car -- with the windows down. So I'm actually talking to a window, which is just slightly above flip flops on the creepy ladder. My mother does this all the time, and there is nothing that drives me more insane than to be stuck at a four-way stop with my mother. She won't use hand signals. She'll just yell, "YOU HAVE THE RIGHT OF WAY!" to the people in the car across from us. As far as they can tell, my mother is mouthing, "ROOS SAVE THE KITE OF MAY!" and then they call the police. And since she insists on calling the police "popo" (I really need to figure out a way to ban MTV at my house), I am petrified of being in the car when she greets an officer with a "What up popo?"\n There has got to be a way to stop this. I don't want to spend the rest of my life warning people outside my car who can't even hear me because the windows are rolled up about the dangers of anti-bacterial soap. That is no way to live.\nBut I'm powerless to stop it. We are all powerless to stop it. I guarantee that one of these days you'll be out with your significant other at a nice restaurant when you'll suddenly develop a terrible urge to start talking about those dang teenagers and their dang loud music. And I'll be at the next table warning you about the dangers of anti-bacterial soap.