Fiona, Rob's mother, came into the store today. I didn't recognise her. To be honest, I thought I knew her from somewhere, and as I let Amir [trainee: the husband of Ramez's cousin] do all the talking and the work, and I saw the horrible look she gave me, something in the bottom of my stomach dropped. Then it clicked. I was mortified, and I turned to Ramez. "Isn't that Rob's mum?" he asked. "Fuck. FUCK. I knew it." With that, I turned, ran into the store room and hid. But then I realised she would know that I was hiding, so I walked back out and apologised for not saying anything earlier. One of those real, okay Eileen, just SUCK IT IN moments. And I thought she may not have recognised me because I was wearing Tess' nametag [mine was stuck in the washing machine up until last night, and I slept in until 5:45am this morning so I left it at home again] but sure enough, after my embarrassed half-arsed patch-up job of a greeting, she used my name. Then she started to cry. Admittedly, it wasn't with the immediacy that I just implied, but STILL. Apparently her garage, which was holding all of her husband's belongings [irreplaceable, and also more difficult to deal with because her husband, Mike, is still living in Queensland] was flooded in the storms last night. "And when I came home, Robert was there. Of course he didn't do anything! He was sitting on the couch, watching television, not caring one bit." And then she burst into tears. I was torn. I couldn't walk away given what had happened earlier, and yet trainee Amir, one who struggles with Australian pronunciation of names and words, couldn't be left alone on register. So I was forced to go and stand by him. Typically when I asked Rob about it later, he laughed. I didn't tell him about the crying, but still, as if I didn't expect him to be so rude and irresponsible. One thing that I found annoying was that he wouldn't look me in the eyes AT ALL, and I HAVE NO IDEA WHY. ARGH. Anju came in and gave me a hug =] Dad said she really just wants a daughter. And due to a "tension filled" conversation Ramez and I were apparently having, Jussy decided that we were angry with each other/ hate each other. Um, what the hell.