Mommy dearest

I find that I am almost bombarded with hilarity every day. Take our recent trip to a “Mexican” restaurant here in Minnesota. We asked the waitress for some extra green chili on a burrito. She looked at Jeff, confused, and responded by saying:

“Oh, we don’t have green chili here. We only have chili verde.”

Hmmm...

How about the conversation that I found myself in over dinner with the family last night? We were discussing odd parenting methods when someone mentioned eating soap as a punishment for profanity. Jeff’s mother was recalling one of her childhood memories. As I laughed in agreement, I continued the conversation.

“Yeah, I hated it when my parents cut a chunk off the bar of soap and made me chew it up and swallow it.”

I was met by crickets…total silence and looks of bewildered shock on both Jeff and Linda’s faces.

“They made you chew and swallow it?” Linda asked, incredulous.

“Yeah, and they wouldn’t let us brush our teeth.”

“That’s horrible!” She exclaimed, disbelieving.

I wondered just what she meant. Wasn’t this a normal occurrence in parenting? I refrained from bringing up the time that my parents had made me and my brother, Cameron, scrape the wax off of the kitchen floor with a butter knife, a project that took us over a week.

I also figured she might not understand if I were to tell her about the time that my parents saved a punishment from an earlier sin until later that evening…well, more like early the next morning. My mother woke me up at 4:00 AM to tell me that I had to stand in the corner, face the wall and remain that way for an hour. I was 9. Seems like the typical punishment for whatever cookie or soda it was that I stole out of my mother’s bedroom closet full of food, right?

My personal favorite occurred when I was a senior in high school. On New Year’s Eve I was invited to a party and was given a curfew of 12:30. I tried to explain to my mother that the New Year’s celebration usually begins around midnight but, poor thing, she just didn’t get it.

I arrived home right on time and, as I walked in the door, I found my mother perched on her trusty corner of the sofa. The TV in the living room and kitchen were playing the same show, creating a cheap surround sound effect. I greeted my mother and she rose from her cushion to come and smell my breath.

“You have been drinking.”

If it had been on another night I would have been up shit creek without a paddle, but on this particular evening I had spent much of my time smoking weed and having unprotected sex in the cab of a truck. Good thing for me!

“I have not had anything to drink tonight, Mom. I promise.” I said, defending myself.

“Don’t you lie to me. I smell it on your breath.”

I smelled Diet Coke and chocolate on hers.

“I swear,” I said, raising my voice a little. “I had a root beer tonight and that’s it.”

“Oh, bullshit, Amber. You’re drunk.”

“Drunk?!” I yelled. “What the hell are you talking about?”

About that time I would have killed for a glass of water, some Cheetos, and a good stretch of my overworked quad muscles, but I didn’t say that.

“Jesus, Amber, your hammered!” She yelled back. “Listen to the way you are slurring and yelling at me.”

“SLURRING???!!!! DO I SOUND LIKE I AM FUCKING SLURRING??!!!”

“Oh my god, Gary, she is so drunk she is completely violent.” She said to my father, who stood watching the progression of this argument without offering assistance to either side.

“VIOLENT??!!”

By this time, tears streamed down my face and my voice cracked with rage. I felt hurt, I felt betrayed and, most of all, I felt like knocking my mom on her ass. So, maybe I was feeling some violent tendencies.

“I think it’s time we called the police, Gary.”

My father casually walked to the phone and dialed. I am pretty sure that by this time our family had the Broomfield police on speed dial.

The police arrived about 10 minutes later to find me in hysterics and my mother wearing a bogus look of motherly concern.

“Hi, Mike.” I said to one of them between my emotional gasps and hiccups. I probably looked pretty worse for the wear upon first impression.

“Hi, Amber. What’s going on with you tonight?”

“Absolutely—hic—nothing. My insane—hic—mom —thinks that I have been—sniff—been drinking and I have—hic—had absolutely—sniff—nothing.”

The look of skepticism on his face was apparent as he explained to me that he was going to have to give me a breathalyzer.

“Fine.” I said, confidently. “Bring it.”

The other officer pulled out the machine and I obligingly blew in to the little straw.

The officers waited a moment and then looked at each other. They looked at my mother, then me, then back at my mother and then said something I will never forget.

“Donna, the amount of alcohol that is in Amber’s system could have been caused by a breath mint or a dose of Nyquil."

Or a couple shots of breath freshener to cover up the smell of cigarette smoke.

"We have better things to do, so goodnight."

Mike gave me a hug as he left and whispered in my ear, "Sorry, sweetheart."

"It's cool," I said as I wiped my nose with the tissue Cameron had brought me.

I looked at my mother. Swollen eyed, cotton mouthed and satisfied, I lifted my middle finger and held it in front of her face. I then went to the phone, made a call and had a chariot on the way to pick me up. I didn’t come back for two days and my mother never apologized.

So what is wrong with all of that? I never thought it strange that, as children, my 2 younger brothers and I knew the Broomfield police force on a first name basis, or that we knew every creek in the floors and doors of our home so well that we could sneak in to the same room in which my mother slept and steal chips, cookies and any other food we could find after picking the lock on her closet. It just never occurred to me that these things were abnormal. I just figured everyone’s parents sucked as much as mine did.