I’ve been fascinated recently by ways in which I’m unavoidably taking on character traits of my parents. This is doubly true of traits I’m getting from my mother, as she died five years ago—every time I pick up a new Mom habit, it’s like she planted a tiny nurture time bomb back in the Carter administration that was just waiting to go off.

So no big deal that I now sneeze after every meal, like she did; I figure there’s some bizarre genetic explanation for that, similar to why I sneeze every time I walk into bright sunlight. But somewhat disturbing that, after decades of teasing her for her inexplicable love of the smell of gasoline, I now find myself unconsciously taking deep shnuffs every time I’m walking past one.

Today another one snuck up on me. One of Mom’s favorite songs was “Puff the Magic Dragon,” which she loved but always found to be incredibly melancholy. Play it on the radio and there would usually be tears on her face by the time it ended. Me, I’ve always liked it, but it wasn’t particularly stirring.

Then it popped up 30 minutes ago on my iTunes shuffle, and brought me to such a complete emotional full stop that I had to stop to write this and clear my head before I could get back to work.

Thanks, Mom. I’m not thrilled with the being short thing, and I’m not looking forward to the diabetes, but this one I can live with. I just have to be careful where I am when it starts playing.

Liking gasoline, though, that still freaks me out.