M.O.M. This time, my mother tests airport security...

My mom flew home from Dallas today. She was doing the nice grandmotherly thing and visiting my sister's two adorable kids. About the time I expected her to be home I got a weird text message from my dad:

"Mom landed on time but was detained by TSA because they found a .45 caliber shell in her purse."

WHAT?! My dad suffers from sarcasm but this is waaay out of line.

My mind is a twitter as I picture my poor mom trying to explain random ammunition in her purse. And then I get the whole story...

IT'S HER BULLET! SHE'S CARRYING STRAY BULLETS IN HER PURSE! IT'S JUST ROLLING AROUND IN HER PURSE LIKE A TUBE OF LIPSTICK!

My hand can't hit my forehead enough times to make this story make any sense. Have I woken up in a parallel universe where my own mother is now the new Bonnie without Clyde?

Airport+mom+bullet=SECURITY! Probably the most exciting thing the security agent's seen since his $5 footlong. All the while my mom is just standing there at the end of the conveyor belt, probably filing her nails and patiently waiting for her WEAPON to pass inspection.

"Well, I thought I'd gotten them all out but I guess I missed one," she says. I say that about tampons, not bullets.

"I had it in my new Coach purse." BAAAARGH. Sadly Coach's spring line has become a dead giveaway for felons since it failed to include a holster or bullet case.

"It's for when I go to West Virgina next week." This I can understand, I've seen Deliverance.

A) I didn't know my mother even owned a gun.
B) I don't know why my mother even owns a gun
C) I don't know IF my mother owns a gun. Maybe it's just the bullets.


I tell you what, ever since all the kids moved out and she started riding that motorcycle, things have gotten out of hand, out of hand.

One Man's Trash is Another Man's Mercedes Benz

If you've got a thousand things to do and yet, you just don't know where to start, I recommend sitting down in front of the computer. Go to www.craigslist.com

Even though the laundry pile now has a hazardous waste sign on it, I find time to do what I call: research. Go to the barter section. It's the grown up version of "trade ya my banana for your Snickers bar." This is my favorite deal today:

FOR TRADE~2002 MERCEDES BENZ SPORT WAGON C320 FOR BEER CAN COLLECTIONS (BEER CANS WANTED)
I don't even like beer but I'm about to drink my way into a European import.




In the for sale section I was delighted to find that I could purchase:

A Male Goat - $100 I am not sure what kind of goat he is but he is friendly.Call me!

I'm not certain what one does with a male goat. Who needs a Wii when you have Billy Goat Gruff in your backyard? Seriously, there's potential here. Your kids may never ask for another pet again.

And to pander to my ongoing chiropractic theory:

Trade Chiropractic services...

Have you had an accident or injury and are you finding it difficult to get the care you need? I can help...headaches, neck pain, mid back pain, pain between the shoulder blades, carpal tunnel, low back pain, sciatica, disc issues...we can help. If it is a joint and soft tissue problem chances are we can get you relief.

In trade I am looking for fun stuff. Old cars...preference given to early Novas, 70-72 Cutlass, Jeep Wrangler (cj 5 or 7)...early Corvette...as well as other things, contact me and we can work on a solution.

Let's get rid of your pain and complaints...

You know how I feel about chiropractors, right mom?

The real question is, will he trade for a goat?

Allergic to Sleeping?

Here's the thing about having allergic reactions: usually you know what you're allergic to! It's taken a good three days to recover from my last phantom allergic reaction. Paging Dr. House...

For the medical record:

1. I didn't eat anything different.
2. I didn't touch anything weird or out of the ordinary, except cabbage.
3. I didn't breathe, snort, sniffle, or inhale anything different.

This time it happened in the middle of the night, so I went from sleeping beauty to anaphylactic shock in three and a half minutes. Not pretty.

So anyway, two Epi pens and a handful of Benadryl and I'm livin' life in a purple haze.

As with any physical ailment, from ingrown toe nails, to MRSA, my mother recommended an appointment with her chiropractor.

Mother on Motorcycle (M.O.M)

During the holiday shopping rush I found myself browsing cautiously through racks of leather chaps and hair tubes. I was in a motorcycle shop called Iron Pony. Had I wandered too far from the mall? Was I delirious? High on white chocolate latte? Yah, but that's beside the point. Why Iron Pony? I was on a mission to find leather fringe-the long, dangling kind that bikers string from their chopper handlebars.

Again you ask why? I was Christmas shopping for my mother. MY MOTHER! My 55-year old mother went and got herself a motorcycle. And not just a little scooter. A big, roaring, fluorescent blue, Hell's-Angels-type beast. We used to talk about children and shopping and what we might cook if either of us knew how to cook. She now speaks a sub-culture language, peppering her conversations with words like 'pipes,' 'ride' and 'ape hangars.'

I really didn't think she'd follow through with her threat to become a motorcycle mama. But now here she is, tooling around town, draped in black leather, flashing a temporary tattoo. I am proud of her for passing her bike test and getting the license and all, I just wonder how long before I have to go break up bar fights with rival biker gangs.

What's next? A guest spot on Happy Days as Pinky Tuscadero? Perhaps a Biker Grandmother clothing line? I wasn't allowed to have so much as a moped, let alone a motorcycle. What's going on here? To top it off, some senior guys, who happened to see my mother at school one day, have designated my mother as a 'hottie.' Not disturbing. Not disturbing at all.

What happened to all the grandmas? A grandma should be in the kitchen wearing an apron that sits just below a saggy bosom, smelling like baked cookies and old people. Of course, my mother has never made homemade cookies in her life, but there's a first time for everything, right, Pinky?

Dibs? Dibs!

It all started with my mother’s yard sale. She and my dad have decided to downsize, which means parting with enough home décor to furnish a small country. My mother lives to decorate. She is the knick knack queen. She’s made decorations out of things that most people would consider small appliances. There are cows in designer suits, bears with dresses, candles wrapped in flowers, French writing on walls, wine glasses wrapped in sparkly stuff. You name, she’s given it a make over. Because she practices decoration diversity, style classification is sketchy, at best. Because of its Midwestern regional connotations, ‘knick knack’ works well. ‘What-not’ sounds like tools and spools of thread and ‘bric-a-brac’ sounds like ceramic frogs and mug holders.

If I said ‘bagatelle’ or ‘furbelow,’ those sound more exotic, right? Or, how about this- if my husband Kevin came home and said, “Honey I found the perfect bagatelle for you today,” I would think, wow, he must have bought me a Faberge egg or something. If, however, he came home and said, “Honey, I bought you some flummery, today, I would have to assume he’d been shopping at the medical supply store again. The same goes for ‘kickshaw’ and ‘gewgaw’. (I’m serious, look at a thesaurus).

Anyway, my mom was making a list of items that we, the kids wanted to keep. On the list my sister-in-law had written DIBS. D-I-B-S. What does this word that sounds like a burp, possibly mean? And why has it risen to international significance, much like the universal sign for, “I need the Heimlich maneuver.”

Dibs is nothing more than the grown up version of “Mine!” Yet, it’s an acceptable form of litigation!

Isn’t that what most of life boils down to, who has first dibs? Leftover pizza? Dibs! Grandma’s antiques? Dibs! Child custody? Dibs! The Alamo? Dibs! Israel and Palestine? Dibs!

This past Sunday, I was sitting in a church we were visiting, trying to wrap my head around what the pastor was explaining as he was baptizing an infant. He said the baptism sacrament is not intended to wash away sins. It was intended to signify that child as being a child of a believer. The parents were dedicating the child to God, to be raised in the teaching of this specific church. So what does it boil down to?? I swear to you, all I could think about was DIBS!

It’s a weird tradition when you stop and consider the meaning that one odd sounding word has on our culture. It’s almost as funny as saying you’re having a yard sale because you’ve collected a lot of gimcrack.

Remember Me? Part II

Through the power of modern technology, I can see where visitors to this blog are from. I most definitely have not seen my mother visiting my blog. Cautiously optimistic that I had offended her with my anti-chiropractor tirades, I asked her last night, why she doesn't read my blog.

"Blog? What blog?"

Wow. Thanks, ma.

I called my mother to tell her I'd written about her on my blog.

"I know. Your brother told me. You wrote about my chiropractor."

"Yeah. I did."

"Well, I did talk to him and I have information about your allergy problem but now I don't think I'm going to tell you because you're just going to write about it on your blog."

"So you're going to withhold life saving information from me?"

"Yes, I think I will. You're just going to keep going to your MD who's going to keep prescribing all that medicine that stunts your growth."

"Mom, I'm 34 years old. Unless I'm going to hit a mid-life growth spurt I think I'll be OK."

I'm still waiting.

WWMMCD? What Would My Mother's Chiropracter Do?

In the past three weeks I seem to have developed either sporadic leprosy or an allergic reaction to who knows what. I have no idea what the catalyst could be. The circumstances surrounding the outbreaks have no commonality except that I was breathing.

It all started at Wal-Mart. I was supposed to be grocery shopping when I spied the ubiquitous yellow clearance sticker beckoning me to the jewelry section. Right there between the giant hoop earrings and Ying Yang key chains, my ears started to swell. Not being accustomed to the swelling of the ears, it felt like my head was changing into an Edvard Munch creation.

Then my lips started tingling and swelling into Angelina Jolie proportions. You'd think this might be a good thing, but no, this did not look good. Everything turned hot, like I was standing in the sauna, except I still had clothes on. When the hives appeared, and I began scratching every inch of exposed skin, I decided to forgo the groceries and go home. Mind you, I still bought the earrings.

Half way home I began wheezing and gasping for breath. By the time I walked through the door I was doubled over in abdominal pain. My husband was understandably disappointed there were no groceries.

A quick trip to the local ER establishment confirmed I am indeed allergic to “something.” With a prescription for steroids and one epi pen later, I was on my merry hive-free way.

I’ve had five or six of these phantom allergy induced anaphylactic reactions. While I can’t pin point the culprit, I have learned not to take Benadryl right before I’m supposed to teach a class and, word to the wise: DO NOT move leg when using an epi pen.

I’m simply at a loss as to what could be causing these odd reactions. Perhaps it’s the unearthly business going on next door. Perhaps I’m allergic to dirt mounds, beeping trucks or men in yellow hats earning prevailing wage. I’m thinking that maybe I could get some compensation from this here big sewer project. Part of that compensation would include Botox and liposuction. Let’s face it, this whole mess has caused premature aging and emotional eating binges.

When I told my mother about my allergic reactions, her first response was,” I bet my chiropractor could help.”

“What will your chiropractor do for my mystery allergy? Twist and contort me like a wet towel until he can snap the antibodies right out or maybe make me an organic necklace to ward off bad allergy spirits?”

“He could help build a wall of tolerance.” I’m beginning to wonder if my mother has transferred some sort of divine quality onto her bone cracker.

I resisted the urge to point out that if one doesn’t know what one is allergic to, how will one build a wall around it and just how many walls will one have to build before I’m tolerant to whatever it is that I’m intolerant to?

“Are you sure you’re not thinking of an exorcist? Maybe you’re thinking he could scare the allergy right out of me.”

“Don’t make fun of chiropractors. I’m going to call mine to see if he can help.”

I have no doubt she will. Meanwhile, I’m going to call an allergist.

I Give Love a Bad Name

Telephone conversation:

Me: Hello?

Mom: Your brother told me that you wrote about me on your blog.

Me: Yep. Sure did. Funny stuff.

Mom: Like what?

Me: Like how you used to dump powdered herbs into our cereal and act like Cheerios were supposed to taste like weeds. Also how we could be bleeding out our eyes and you would drag us to the chiropractor instead of the ER.

Mom: You wrote about chiropractors? Oh no. You didn’t give them a bad name, did you?

Me: Nope. Not at all.

Mom: I hope my chiropractor doesn’t read it and get offended.

Me: Is your chiropractor one of the six people who read this blog?

Mom: Just in case, you better say something nice.

Everything I Know About Life I Learned from Jerry Seinfeld

My mother’s answer to every physical ailment is the chiropractor. Since I was 7 years old, I visited the chiropractor to “fix” my asthma attacks. My creepiest memories of childhood are of me on a table being smothered by a 200lb. man trying to twist my head off my neck.

I spent several years going to the chiropractor but never got better lungs; my chiropractor got a condo on Grand Cayman. To this day my mother believes that chiropractors are the true miracle workers of the world. Gall bladder problems? Chiropractor. Planter’s warts? Chiropractor. This, in combinations with her holistic, herbal mindset made for one weird childhood. I distinctly remember my mother being called to school to pick me up because I was sick. I was SICK! She brought in her liquid aloe vera extract, made me drink it and told me to stick out the day because I was going to be fine. The school never called her in again.

So when my husband starting having back issues, my mother’s response was, “get him to the chiropractor.” Twelve appointments, heat massage, and an expensive, custom made back pillow later, I fixed him. That’s right. I fixed him. Me and Jerry Seinfeld.

You know that episode where George’s wallet is stuffed so full of crap that his wallet barely even closes? I married George Costanza. I took one look at his wallet and found receipts from 1982, expired credit cards, frequent lunch punch cards with exactly one lunch punched out of all 122 cards; old movie stubs and "How to care for fish" instructions (don’t have fish); you name it, it was in there.

Anyway, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist caught in a love triangle to figure out that if you sit lopsided on your butt all day, you’re going to have back problems. Thanks to George Costanza, my husband’s wallet is no longer a pain in the butt.

That my friends, is educational TV.

** Not all chiropractors are quacks. I know some very fine people who happen to be chiropractors. Use with caution.