Listen, Michelle, do you need oregano? I ordered spices from this wholesaler, and they sent me a pound of oregano.”

“A pound of oregano. Sure, Mom.”

“What’s so funny? If you can’t use it all, maybe you can, you know, put some in plastic baggies — give it to your friends.”

“Sure. Plastic baggies. Oregano. My friends will be very excited.”

“Oh. Good. Did you get the Easter basket I sent? What about the books?”

My mother is losing her mind.

It was inevitable, really. After working full time for 40 years (her only respite during the four-year vacation of medical school), my mother retired. I feel like an observer of a cruel but fascinating psychological experiment: “Subject D, blindfolded, is led to similar rooms of increasing size. Told she is shrinking. Subject displays signs of psychosis, including shipment of culinary herbs across state lines.”

I get status reports from my 17-year-old brother.

“What does she do all day?”

“She cleans the house,” he says. “Every. Single. Day. And cooks. Four-course meals. Homemade bread.”

“Fascinating!”

My mother is a stay-at-home mom — a statement that seems so ludicrous to me that I might as well add that I am a tall, mustached Belgian man. But her Super-SAHM transformation was, sadly, almost predictable. This brilliant woman with her M.D. from Harvard and contributions to AIDS research resigned from her position with a major drug company. She wasn’t being heard.

Or, you know, she wasn’t biologically suited for the job.

Perhaps it was her stint as “snack mom” that precluded her from holding more than the highest medical position at a multibillion-dollar company.

As soon as those Larry Summers comments saw the light of day, Mom BCC’ed me with her response, very politely ripping him a new one. Good thing for that surgical rotation.

Then she forwarded the 105 relevant gender bias studies she had just read. Complete with handy-dandy statistical analysis. Too bad she was neither logical nor “detail-oriented” enough for a career in the sciences.

Medical school interviewers had nearly dismissed her because of her advanced age of 26 and confounding lack of male parts. After all, she was just going to pop out babies. She hid her pregnancy with me in her fourth year to avoid a worse fate.

“They thought I was getting fat. That was bad enough!”

Motherhood then forced her into mediocrity. During her career she was only once honored by Vice President Gore for her achievements. Such was her biological destiny.

Now she’s “retired.” Bias? What bias?

Hers is but one story, a fact I readily admit. All those who would criticize the anecdotal nature of my argument, please forward your names and addresses. My mom has a few studies she’d like to send you. And some oregano. Do you need oregano?

Michelle Bowen-Ziecheck is a Weinberg junior. She can be reached at [email protected].