Mom, Mitt Romney, and George Takei

I love my sister.

I love my sister, who has a big mouth.

I love my sister, who has a big mouth, and thinks she’s always right, and can’t leave WELL ENOUGH ALONE!

Mom signed up for Facebook … gosh, it’s been years now. And then one night shortly thereafter she called me and said that one of my friends had asked to be her friend and she didn’t like that my friends could just find her on Facebook and that she was quitting, by God, and if I had any sense, I’d do the same!

What you have to realize, here, is that these friends of mine weren’t friending her. They were under the “people you might know” heading.

Nevertheless, I told her that I understood, and that I supported her decision. Because boy howdy, did I support my mother’s decision to get off of Facebook.

UNTIL. Apparently one day not too long ago, Lydia was checking Facebook on Mom’s computer. Mom asked her not to and cited privacy concerns. Lydia explained that it was just letting her see who we were friends with, not that these people were asking to friend Mom.

Thanks, Lydia.

But most of a week passed without incident.

Then one night, at 11:30, on a school night, when I have to be up before most self-respecting roosters, Mom calls.

Mom: ELLE! I can’t BELIEVE Facebook. They stop trying to get me to be friends with your friends, and what happens?? They let MITT ROMNEY try to be my friend!!!

Huh?

So I made her tell me exactly where on the page she saw Mitt Romney and it turned out to be under “Things You Might Like” or whatever.

So I told her that. I explained to her what a friend request was like. We beat that subject like a dead horse. We’re getting ready to hang up (finally!!) and Mom says, very wistfully, “You mean.. Mitt Romney doesn’t want to be my friend?”

“Rule of thumb, Mom, somebody famous is generally not going to be your friend.”

“Oh…. well…. I’ll… just say goodnight then….”

“Goodnight, Mom”

While we’d been talking, I’d been fooling around on Facebook to have a point of reference. And a friend had posted one of those funny pictures from George Takei and I reposted it. 

And it felt sooo good to get to bed, and my pillows were comfortable and the bed was comfortable and the blankets were soft and warm and it was comfortable to be tired…. which is when you know you’re in trouble.

Because then the phone rang.

“Young lady, what do you MEAN you can’t be friends with someone famous?? You wouldn’t let me be friends with Mitt Romney and there you are making friends with SULU!! And he’s MUCH more groovy than any old politician!!!”

An Elephant Never Forgets

If you ask Mom, she will tell you that she is the soul of constancy. When she has an opinion, she will tell you, she sticks to it come hell or high water.

What any reasonable observer would tell you is that she can’t make up her mind long enough to HAVE an opinion. This is the only woman I know who keeps her rosary in a jewelry box with her tarot cards, liberally sprinkled with white sage and sea salt.

I’m not kidding. She can’t even make up her mind long enough to choose one faith.

Anyway, right now Mom has decided that she’s a Republican. I take comfort in the fact that the election isn’t until November, by which time she will have flip flopped at least once.

I digress. We were on the phone last night and she was whining about the fact that the Republicans haven’t put forth one good candidate. This went on for quite some time, and I just listened.

Mitt Romney sounds ok but she doesn’t trust him. She thinks Ron Paul is just crazy (“Why bother to elect somebody if he’s just going to turn it into an anarchy??”). Newt Gingrich has too much temper to be presidential. And so on.

Finally she’s winding up. “…and I think they should just do like they did with Nixon and put an ad in the paper, because we need some real choices here!”

“Umm… Mom? You remember how that turned out, right?”

There’s a looong silence.

“Do you know, dear, actually Obama isn’t really that bad.”

“I kind of like him.”

“He did try and keep his campaign promises.”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll have to think about that.”

More silence. It’s good to let things sink in with Mom.

“Besides, young lady, what makes you think I would remember Nixon??”

The Trials of Job

I’ve been feeling a bit dry on posts lately. It’s like I try and try to think of something funny that happened and I just can’t come up with anything. Tonight, however, I was talking to Mom and something came back to me.

To say that my father was antiestablishment is probably the understatement of a lifetime. He was the ultimate rebel without a cause. So he made causes.

He also had an impish sense of mischief and fun. Ninety per cent of the time, this was harmless and entertaining. But it also meant he had great talent and ingenuity in “Sticking it to The Man,” which he did at every opportunity. And if you’re going to do it that often, you have to have a pretty broad definition of who “The Man” is.

For example, he was hospitalized once when I was in middle school. One of the questions on the admittance form asked you to list your faith.

Dad said that he was a worshipper of Mighty Thor.

(I don’t know why, but he seemed to have particular venom toward born again Christians. I suspect that what he was really upset about was that people tend to assume that if you are white and American, you’re also Christian. I say this because he once told me that I could find no better role model than Christ, and on another occasion spoke of Christ as the original hippie. Considering the source, this was pretty high praise. No, I don’t know what he actually believed, because he could dodge questions like nobody’s business.)

I’d like to remind everyone that I grew up in a VERY rural area of western Virginia.

So now the story starts. When we were kids, there was a family of whom we saw quite a bit. Karen was my age and had my interests, Kelly was Lydia’s age and had Lydia’s interests, and Mrs. McGee drove a school bus, just like my Mom did.

They were born again Christian. Pentacostal,  I believe, but I’m not prepared to swear to it.

Anyway, we bumped into each other quite a lot. 4H meetings, Academic Team meets, band recitals, PTA meetings… you name it. I won’t say we were intimate, but we were friendly and cordial and always happy to see each other.

UNTIL.

Dad and Mrs. McGee were both obsessive readers. They were the kind of people who carry a paperback with them and read it while waiting for the meeting to start. So one day, Dad was reading a copy of Heinlein’s “Job.” If you’ve read this book, please feel free to skip the following paragraph.

It would be fair to say that “Job” is a modern day/science fiction retelling of the biblical book of the same name. It would also be fair to say that it is a deeply offensive parody, laden with sex, crises of faith, and … alternate cosmology. I love it and highly recommend it – if you aren’t turned off already.

I was about thirteen at the time, and I had read “Job” already (because I’d been forbidden to. Duh.)

We were waiting for a PTA meeting to start and Mrs. McGee looked over and asked Dad what the book was about. Dad told her that it was a retelling of Job from the Bible.

Mrs. McGee decided she just had to read it. Dad loaned it to her.

Now, in order to get from my locker to Mom’s bus, I had to walk right past Mrs. McGee’s bus. I mean I took that sidewalk at a dead sprint every afternoon for six weeks. Difficult to manage carrying a tuba, especially when you stand 4’10” and weigh a wopping 85 lb, but with the proper motivation, it can be done.

Except one day I had a run in with the resident bully. Right in front of Mrs. McGee’s bus. Of course she stepped down as a force of discipline and authority, and then asked me to step into her bus for a second. She handed me the book. I shall never forget her words or the look on her face.

“Please thank your father very much for being so kind as to lend me that book.” Pause. “I shall certainly never forget it.”

Of course, Dad laughed his butt off when he heard that.

Flash forward three years. Our junior year of high school has just ended, and we have been given a list of books that we ought to read before heading off to college. I don’t know who thought that list up, because some of them I’d read in elementary school (“Lord of the Rings”) and some I was forbidden to read until I was thirty two (as Mom screamed when I brought “Clan of the Cave Bear” home from the library). But, barring parental interference, I was bound and determined to read every book on that damn list between this year and next. I got every one except “Clan of the Cave Bear.” Karen was right behind me on this project.

So summer is a pretty busy time in 4H. I’m sitting there waiting for a meeting to start and I’m reading “War and Peace,” which was also on the magic list. Karen’s mother asked me what I was reading and I told her. She sort of paused.

“Is that really appropriate for someone your age?”

“Oh, sure! And it’s really good and it’s all about Russia in the Napoleanic Wars.”

“Oh.” She’s really lost here.

Dad was never one to pass up putting in his two cents’ worth.

“I agree. There’s nothing in it that I would object to my teenaged daughter being exposed to.”

And Mrs. McGee looked from Dad – to “Stranger in a Strange Land” in front of him – to me – to “War and Peace,” all in very slow motion.

Karen never did read “War and Peace,” I hear. But through a serious oversight born of parental ignorance, she did get her hands on “Clan of the Cave Bear.”

….

Want to know how this came up? Mom had just found out that the entire population of Rockingham County believes that Lydia and I were brought up as godless heathens. She simply could not figure out how this had occured (the fact that it was pretty close to true never crossed her mind. Which is as may be, because that isn’t what people know about. But EVERYONE  knows about Job and Mighty Thor.)

Spinosaurus

We’ve had a bit of a run of bad luck lately. Harold got in a car wreck two weeks ago, then had a bad fall. We aren’t sure which is the real culprit, but his back has been hurting him ever since. In true “Men Are from Mars” fashion, he went to the doctor on Friday, after much coaxing, and was given x-rays. They got back to us yesterday and said that they thought it was spondylosis or similar.

So I called my mother, who is a nurse, to get some background on this, because by time I got the memo, the doctor’s office was closed, and my beloved had neglected to ask the doctor what I thought were some pretty important questions. Like, “What the hell is spondylosis?”

By the way, I could absolutely be spelling this wrong, so don’t bother to google. I’m going off of Harold’s spelling, which is about as straightforward as his thought process.

Anyway, Mom answered the phone and I thought I had woken her up. I offered to call her back and she wouldn’t hear of it. Then I notice that what I thought was sleep-slurring was… not.

“Mom, are you sure you’re ok?”

“mumble, mumble, Will, mumble, in the fridge.”

“I didn’t quite catch that?”

“Why’d I leave Will and them in the fridge?”

Huh?

“Once more, please?”

(Now very loudly and carefully). “White wine left Will and them in the fridge.”

Now, most of you know me. I’m officially a lightweight when it comes to drinking. But I really have a much higher tolerance level than Mom. As in, I can actually finish a beer.

Usually.

“So, you had a glass of wine?”

“No.”

“Ok, then why were you telling me about Will’s wine?”

“I didn’t have a glass.”

“Ok…”

“I had three.”

“Ah.”

“Yes, when you mix it with cranberry juice, it really isn’t that bad. It’s so easy to drink. I’m sooo sorry I ever complained about how heavy a drinker you are. Do you mix it with cranberry juice too?”

(For the record, yes, we have had that conversation. No, it’s absolutely unjustified. I might drink once or twice a year. But then, if your last drink was in 1989, I guess that might seem like heavy drinking.)

“No, Mom, I don’t even drink wine that often.”

“Oh.”

Pause.

“Do you mix your liquor with cranberry juice?”

“No, I usually mix it with Coke.”

“Well, you really ought to try the cranberry juice. I mean, soda will CAUSE a bladder infection, but cranberry juice will STOP one.”

This is officially getting out of hand.

“Hey, since we’re on the medical topic, I had a question to ask you. What’s spondylosis?”

“Spinosaurus?”

“No, Mom. Spondylosis.”

“Oh. What’s Spinosaurus?”

Ok, back up. You saw two kids through kindergarten and went through dino craze with both of them, and you’re unsure of what Spinosaurus is?

“It’s a dinosaur.”

“What kind?”

“Kind of like a T Rex, except with spines.”

“Oh. Well, that makes sense.”

“Mom, what’s spondylosis?”

“Well, you’re the one who had six years of Latin, what do you think?!”

Clairvoyance

So, Harold is a video game NUT.

I mean, I enjoy a good video game. But if you told me I could never touch the Xbox again, I believe I’d miss streaming Netflix before I would gaming.

He has been devoting every spare second lately to Skyrim (which, for the uninitiated, just came out last week). I found other things to do long ago. Like, last week.

So he’s pounding something into Oblivion (da dum ching), and I was getting zip in the way of communication or companionship, so I decided it was a good time to call Mom.

We’ve been talking for a while when this primal howl comes from the couch. A total barbaric yawp.

“Clairvoyance is the BEST. SPELL. EVER!!!”

Mom pauses.

“Elanor…”

Mom uses my full name when she wants an extra second to think.

“Did he just say….. ‘Clairvoyance’?”

I so did not want the video game talk right now, and if I told her the circumstances, I would get it.

“Yes.”

“Oh.”

Pause.

“Well, I suppose I could teach him to read the Tarot… do you think he’s mature enough?”

Pole Dancing, Part 2

So Grandma hadn’t been feeling very well after the wedding (come to find out it was walking pneumonia). So one day I called to check up on her.

“Honey, I’m so glad to hear from you! You know, ever since you told me about that pole I’ve just been laughing to myself!”

“Is that so?”

“Yes, it just seems so funny to think of this old lady jiggling around in her alltogether. I can’t imagine anyone would enjoy it, though…”

This is officially a conversational dead end. I can say “There are some pretty sick guys who would think that was awfully hot,” or “Yeah, Grandma, you’re just gross.” Neither sounds like a good plan. I decide on the middle road.

“Well, maybe there’s someone….” I’m trying to imbue a reasonable amount of scepticism into this statement. Apparently it didn’t come across.

“Really, do you think so?”

I’m committed now.

“Well, maybe.”

“Maybe I just need some practice first.”

“…. Maybe.”

“I know, I’ll try it for my senior’s group!!!”

?!?!?!

“Umm… Grandma, do you really think that’s a good idea?”

“Yeah, sure, why not? And if I get good enough, I can give lessons!”

“Um, Grandma? Doesn’t your minister go to your senior citizens group?”

“Oh, Reverend Tim? Yeah, but that’s okay.”

“It is?”

“He retired last week! He’s not my minister anymore!”

 

Wedding Stories!

I promised some stories from Lydia’s wedding.

Actually, all things considered, it was a very nice ceremony. It was Renaissance themed, and they had some old vows, which I actually thought were pretty sweet. Like, they gave each other salt to show that they would cherish each other through tears of joy and sorrow, they gave each other a coin to show that all they had belonged to each other, stuff like that.

And Grandma was officiating.

Now, Lydia really ought to have known better, because Grandma officiated at my wedding. She bawled the whole way through, then would wipe her face, so her fingers would be wet, then try to turn a page in the manual and some of the pages ended up sticking together. So we missed a whole lot of trivial little things like… forsaking all others and till death do you part.

But Lydia was in a pretty tight spot, because if she had acted on that knowledge, the whole family would have been like… “ELLE asked your grandmother to officiate. Don’t YOU want your grandmother to officiate??”

So it went something like this:

“William Jeffrey, do you give to Lydia this bread, that you may succor her till the end of days?”

I’m thinking, “Wow, End of Days?? That’s pretty apocalyptic for a faux-pagan ceremony.”

“Lydia, I give you this bread, that I shall succor you till the end of OUR days.”

Ok, that sounds a little better.

“Oh, that IS what I was supposed to say, isn’t it?” *sigh* “Lydia Jane, do you give to William this bread, that you may succor him till the end of days?”

“William, I give you this bread, that I shall succor you till the end of OUR days.”

“Shit! I did it again!”

***

Now, I also have to tell you a bit about my Aunt Glenda. Aunt Glenda is my father’s eldest sister, tough as nails and hardheaded as a mule. Except more bossy.

Way more bossy.

Lydia had neglected to line up a photographer, and many people (rightly) felt that she ought to have some record of the wedding, so out came about fifty cameras. Aunt Glenda was first in line and had claimed the title of official photographer within five minutes.

That’s just the way she works. It’s like… she just expects the rest of the world to fall in with her views, so ninety percent of the time, they do. There are exactly three people who are immune to her… myself, Mom, and her eldest daughter Sally. And sometimes Sally plays along to keep the peace.

So we’re at the restaurant having the reception. Aunt Glenda is trying to get the perfect shot. Will and Lydia are standing side by side going through a doorway, and Aunt Glenda is behind them, telling them how to move so she can get what she wants. “Look this way, move like this”… you get the idea.

You also have to know that Will and Lydia are both about 5’10”. Aunt Glenda would have to stand on tiptoe to hit 5’1″, so it’s looking pretty funny anyway. Like a Chihuahua who just KNOWS he can make that Rottie do what he wants him to.

Always put your money on the Chihuahua.

Will and Lydia both have long hair, and they both had it braided for the day in fancy braids. Will’s was just sort of a French braid, and Lydia’s had baby’s breath all through it. Don’t ask me how.

Aunt Glenda was rapidly loosing patience that the world was not molding itself to her desire quickly enough.

So she reaches up… WAY up… and grabs the back of Lydia’s braid and yanks it around to where Lydia is looking the way she needs to be.

“Now, FREEZE.”

Will is looking at her with his jaw on the floor.

So Aunt Glenda reaches over his shoulder, grabs HIS braid, and repeats the process.

It’s actually a pretty good picture… I’d put it up if it weren’t for privacy concerns. But the REALLY priceless picture is the one that Aunt Sherry took from the front. Because then you can see the looks on their faces.

My Mother and the Awesome Brownies

This is a flashback from several years ago, when Dad was still alive.  I had just moved out on my own, and Lydia was still living with Mom and Dad. Mom had just had glaucoma surgery.

So I called home that night to see how things had gone. I tried Mom’s phone.

No answer.

I tried Dad’s phone.

No answer.

I tried Lydia’s phone. She did pick up. “Heeeyyyy.”

I can’t even describe the sound of her voice. It was absolutely dreamy, totally contented, and more than a little spacy.

“Hey, Lydia, I just wanted to call and chack on Mom after the surgery.”

“Ooohhhh. She’s fiiine.”

“I coudn’t get Dad either. How’s he?”

“Ooohhh…. he’s fiiine.”

I’m starting to get a little concerned. I did go to college and I’ve had some experience with this speech pattern.

“How are you?”

“Ohhh…. I’m fine. Rashid came over after the surgery and brought Mom something to help her get better. And I used it to make some awwwesomme brooowwnieees.”

Oh. Shit.

I have to introduce Rashid to you. Rashid is my parents’ next door neighbor, and a wonderful, if quirky, individual. He and my father were thick as theives. Also, he is not ethnically Arabic, he converted to Sufi Islam in San Francisco in about 1968. He picked up a couple of other habits there, too, although I’m not sure he still actively follows them, and I once recieved a very strong lecture from him on the subject of… the harder variants of his interests … I still have no doubt that he would know how to get a hold of whatever he felt he needed or wanted. Or, that he felt Mom needed directly after glaucoma surgery.

Am I making myself clear enough?

Ok, so at this point I’m seriously concerned. Dad would have had no problem with eating awesome brownies, and would know how to deal with it. Mom… I’m not sure about Mom. She swears she never touched the stuff, but once let slip that she loved the smell. In the absence of further evidence, I felt like I needed to call Mom again. So I let Lydia go back to … whatever state she was in… and called Mom.

She picked up the phone, said “Call tomorrow,” and hung up. She didn’t sound quite as spacy as Lydia… but close enough. And Mom would never, EVER hang up on someone.

Oh, dear.

So the next day I decided that I really ought to try Lydia first, as I felt that she would be the most forthcoming. To my relief, she sounded like her usual perky self.

She did, however, refuse to confirm or deny ANYTHING.

Well, that did it. I had a weekend off and I drove my tail up to Northern Virginia, because by God, I had to get to the bottom of this. I’ve been raising the entire rest of my family since I was about twelve and this was clearly the incident in which they needed it most.

I cooked dinner that night in order to give the rest of the family a break. I was reaching into the fridge when I saw a pack of my father’s cigarettes in the refrigerator. Curioser and curioser. On closer inspection, it had “Rashid’s seeds” written on it in Sharpie.

I’m not the praying type, but I said a brief prayer then. I put it back exactly where I got it and kept cooking.

Dad walked in. I decided to go for the jugular. I told him all my concerns and finished out with why the hell had he set aside seeds for Rashid stashed in the refrigerator?

He said that they were leftovers from the brownies. He walked out.

Mom keeps her cooking alcohol in the top cabinet with her measuring cups. I needed a measuring cup. Now, you can always tell what Mom gets to cook with because it’s usually a variety of wine or sherry. Cheap wine or sherry. There was a huge bottle, half full, of very expensive, top of the line rum right in the front.

Lydia walked in. I gave her a short rendition of my views on mixing forms of recreation and underage indulgence.

I heard Dad cracking up from the next room.

It turns out that what really happened was this: Mom’s surgery had been early in the morning, and the whole house had gotten up at 5 AM in order to be in time. Therefore, they had gone to bed early. Mom and Dad had slept through their phone calls, Mom was on pain pills and  didn’t even remember her second one, and Lydia had woken up and been half asleep when I talked to her.

Rashid had brought over the very nice rum and nothing else. Lydia had made brownies with rum in them (so she could have rum without drinking)  and they were indeed awesome.

The pack of “Rashid’s seeds” were from a dogwood bush. Mom had been given a handful of them and had set some aside for Rashid, because his mother wanted some. But they were dried, so they didn’t really look like dogwood seeds. I’m not sure I would be able to identify the other kind.

When I called Lydia the day before, she had recognized a good thing when she saw one, led me on, and alerted Dad to do the same. He played along with great verve and zest. Mom, I think I mentioned, was on pain killers and was left out of it.

None of which did the least thing to convince me that my family was ready to function on their own. This opinion has not changed in the slightest, and I do not foresee that it ever will.

Computer shopping with the technologically illiterate

It’s been a hectic week, so sorry I didn’t get back to all the joys of the blog. But thanks to a well-needed doctor’s note, I have a few days off of work and will attempt to rectify this. I just hope it still makes sense when the Nyquil wears off.

As I said earlier, Lydia’s wedding was this week. And I do have a pretty typical Grandma story to post about it…. but I was afraid that this was starting to turn into a “pick on Grandma blog.” This mustn’t be. Picking on people is a pretty equal opportunity pastime in my family (there’s still a story that crops up from time to time about me c. age 7), and I see no reason why the blog should be any different. So, without further ado… our very first MOM STORY!!

I feel I ought to preface this. I adore my mother. I also think she’s hilarious, but I’m fully aware that this is only because I know her… and because of her innate ability to walk into gaffes. Dad teased her for years and I think she just gives off the “target vibe” now.

Anyway, if I put up some Mom stories, then you will know her too and think she’s just as funny as I do.

So, I was driving up to see Mom and she asked me to meet her at Best Buy, because she wanted a new laptop. Now, bear in mind that any Best Buy that Mom can get to is about six hours away from me, so I was tired and perhaps the filter for my internal monologue wasn’t working quite right. Also bear in mind that Mom is…. technologically challenged. For years Dad programmed TVs, VCRs, DVD players, computers, etc etc etc. Dad has now gone to the Great Hotspot in the Sky, so Mom is definitely treading water.

 So we were walking into the building and there was a huge banner hung over the door saying “Now hiring! Inquire within!”

Now, Mom has a compulsion about applying for jobs. It doesn’t matter what the new one pays, how much she likes or dislikes her current job, or anything else. I think it just gives her a sense of security to know she has options. So the first thing out her mouth is “Do you think that they would hire an illiterate like me?”

See above regarding the internal monologue. I wasn’t even conscious of thinking it… but somehow I heard “Sure, Mom, it’s illegal to discriminate against the handicapped,” coming out of my mouth. Needless to say, that got me bopped on the back of the head. For a pacifist, Mom is big on bopping people.

You have to know that Mom doesn’t really need that much on her computer. She needs to be able to watch streaming Netflix, she needs to be able to play CDs, and she needs to check her email. Rewind. She needs to be ABLE to check her email, because she never actually does it. If you need to email Mom, you’d better call her first and tell her you’re sending something. At which point she will think “Well, I just talked to Elle, so what could she have to say in an email?” Two weeks later she will email you back saying “What was this about?”

But I digress. So we’re going over all the display laptops, any of which would have done nicely for what she needed, and she asked me why a couple of them were so expensive. So I tried to explain the difference between gaming laptops and run of the mill laptops. I say “tried” because, whereas I am literate enough to do minor repairs and pick out a decent computer, I’m not always sure about the lingo and I tend to be a little out of date.

This hasn’t dawned on Mom yet. She knows I have a smartphone and that I can run scandisk, and that makes me a guru in her eyes.

So it finally got through to her that most games needed a faster, more streamlined computer. I thought maybe she would start gravitating toward the lower end ones, because why pay 1200$ if all you need to spend is 500$? Not so.

“But…. what if I WANT to play video games?”

Please note that I did not, despite extreme provocation, say: “Then Hell will have frozen over.”  But sometimes the best way to get a point across to Mom is to give her just enough rope to hang herself. She remembers better that way.

“Mom, what kind of video games were you thinking of?”

“Well… I like to play solitaire.”

“I think any of these would be able to handle that. In fact, it will probably come loaded on it.”

“Oh. Mah Jong too?”

“Yes, Mom, Mah Jong, too.”

“Hmm…. but there are games I’ve seen you play that I might want.”

“Like?”

“Well, there was this one with a blue girl?”

I’ve got a pretty good idea of what game she’s talking about. But a good way to give Mom more of the aforesaid rope is to play dumb.

“Blue girl?”

“Yes, you know, you had a pet tiger, just like Mr. T rode in the commercials!”

Aha.

“I think you’re thinking of Warcraft.”

“WARCRAFT!?!? I can’t believe you would play a game called WARCRAFT!!! I didn’t raise you with such VIOLENT TENDANCIES!”

Is that so, Mom? Who smacked whom on the back of the head not ten minutes earlier?

So before THAT thought could slip through the filter, a nice saleslady came over and saved my bacon. I’m also grateful that she was about Mom’s age, because I’m not sure what a teenager would have been able to get through to her.

So Mom is talking to the saleslady (she wanted to know about how much RAM and ROM was in each machine for crying out loud. I thought I’d already done that prep work but apparently it didn’t stick. And RAM was the tip of the iceberg). We finally decided on a nice little laptop with a good speaker set and a good sized screen for her movies, and we’re starting to wind things up. Mom realizes that her chance is going to escape her if she wants a job application. So she asks the nice lady if they would hire her.

I love this lady. Without missing a beat, she says, “I’ll get you an application right away! It’s illegal to discriminate against the handicapped!”

And, for my pacifist mother, that was sufficient reason to smack me again.

The Facial Massager

So, when my Beloved came home from work last night, I told him about Grandma and the conversation that I shared with you guys last night. His instant response was: “Well, you know what your next post is… THE FACIAL MASSAGER!”

He is absolutely right.

Allow me to set the scene. This is Thanksgiving of last year. We are at my grandmother’s house, and she lives next door to my Aunt Sherry. Aunt Sherry and Uncle Mark are …. unique. If “unique” means “intentionally country, crude, well-meaning, totally impulsive, sweet as can be, and absolutely lovable.” Mom, myself, Harold (my Best Beloved), and my younger sister Lydia make up the rest of the crew. Then we come to find out that Grandma has invited her friend from church (Baptist!!) over to have dinner with us, since she had just lost her husband a few weeks before, and nobody wanted her to have to go through Thanksgiving alone.

Props for consideration. An Epic Fail on execution.

So right about the time Mom got sent out to Timbuktu to find where this lady lives and pick her up, I began setting the table and noticed that there was…. ahem… a personal toy just sitting in the middle of the dining room table.

You know, right where the turkey would set it off nicely.

After I picked my jaw up off the floor, I gave Grandma a gentle hint regarding the desirability of removing said object. (Did I mention that it was neon pink with black tiger stripes all the way up it?)

Nothing happened.

I enlisted Aunt Sherry’s help. I personally witnessed her giving Grandma a slightly stronger hint. And she had a very good incentive, because she goes to that church too.

Lydia, I believe, just thought this the height of funny. No help there.

We hear Mom pulling up the driveway. We hear Aunt Sherry shrieking “For God’s sake, Ma, PUT THE G–D— THING AWAY!”

So Mom and the  friend from church come in the door and in all the hugs and introductions and kerfuffle I guess I just assumed that the entire situation had gotten taken care of.

As it turns out, that was overly optimistic. I sat through turkey, stuffing, and God knows what all else…. I have very little memory of the actual dinner, because all my focus was on playing it cool. The table is cleared and the dessert brought out without incident… except, as Lydia was doing the serving, she oh so casually managed to turn the frickin’ thing into a centerpeice.

Nobody said a word about it. I started to breathe again.

Right when I’m trying to decide whether my second piece of pie should be coconut or pecan, Lydia pipes up. She sounds genuintely interested and uber respectful. The perfect granddaughter.

“Grandma, why do you have a vibrator sitting on your dining room table?”

Lest we forget, this is not like she just now noticed. She snickered all through the earlier proceedings. She ARRANGED the TABLE for crying out loud. No, my dear sister had been biding her time all through dinner and had chosen her moment with the impeccable timing that comes from her inborn sense of stagecraft.

Grandma: My what?

Lydia: Your vibrator. (She did, considerately, refrain from saying “Duh!” although it was clearly implied in her tone.)

Grandma: Is that what you call it? I suppose it does vibrate, doesn’t it?

I have never seen my mother’s face so red. Never. Lydia is in high heaven. Harold looks like he wants to be somewhere else – anywhere else. Uncle Mark looks like he’s waiting for the punchline. I daren’t look at the Baptist lady.

Grandma  is still in full flow. “But I just use it on my face, to massage out my wrinkles! And that’s what my mother used it for, too, she bought one in the 70s! I just don’t understand what the problem is!”

Aunt Sherry, with the air of getting something unpleasant over with now, says “But, Ma, it isn’t for your face. That’s not what it was designed for.”

“Well, what is it for?”

So Uncle Mark, with great glee and gusto, told her.

“WELL. I can’t believe my OWN CHILDREN would leave me in ignorance of such a thing. I am never using that FILTHY THING again. NEVER! I’m putting it straight in the next yard sale!!”

Now Aunt Sherry has a pleading tone to her voice. “Ma, you really can’t put that in a yard sale. Really.”

“Well, I don’t see why not! After all, that’s where I bought it!”