Rob's Mom Part 13: Funny Story: "Very Pleasant!"

Here's another story from my (Rob) funny family archives. My mom loved her house. She always took pride in the house and how she was a meticulous housekeeper. She told stories of how when she was a girl, that she and her mom would clean their house from top to bottom,  mopping, sweeping, cleaning windows, doing laundry, etc. She never lost that when she got older either.
  In addition to keeping the inside of the house clean, she was always outside with my dad, planting, trimming shrubs, sawing branches of trees, mowing the lawn (when me or my brothers didn't do it - which we usually did), painting or staining outside furniture, making sure that everything was color-coordinated, swept up, and in order. She made sure that outside chair pads matched the outside table umbrellas. She loved flowers and yellow was her favorite color, so there were always a lot of yellow flowers around.
  I've provided all of this background because Mom and Dad really put a lot of work into their house and took pride in doing it and making it look great. It did.

Mom got steamed!

   On the side of the street we lived were colonial houses, ranchers, split level houses. We lived in a rancher. Across the street (for some reason) there were huge brick houses that we called mansions (they weren't really, but they were huge houses). The people that lived in those houses were usually doctors or lawyers and had a lot of money. 
  One day, when my brothers and I were teenagers, my mother went out grocery shopping. It was there that she ran into one of the neighbors who lived further down the street (we lived on a main street). The woman was the wife of a doctor and apparently she was a bit snobbish.
  Mom came home from grocery shopping and she was steaming. When my brother Doug and I asked what was wrong she said she ran into Mrs. X (I don't recall her name), "the doctor's wife." Mom said that she made conversation with Mrs. X, and said "Don't you live in the beautiful brick house with the large picture windows (and whatever else she may have said)?"  Mrs. X replied she did live there and Mom said she told Mrs. X she loved the landscaping around her house, too. She then told Mrs. X where we live, and Mrs. X replied in a very snobbish way, "I've seen your house, it's very pleasant."
  Mom was livid. She was insulted (and she should have been).

  Of course, my brother Doug and I were not ones to let things go, and we liked to turn bad stuff into funny stuff, so through the years, we'd take advantage of situations and use that phrase.
  During dinner one night, mom served broccoli, which we both hated, and mom asked if we were going to eat it. I remember Doug saying, "I've tasted your broccoli, it's very pleasant." We all laughed (including mom). We went on to use that saying for everything, from clothing to paint colors, to dinner selections. It was all in fun, and that saying will always be funny to us!