My mom sometimes fails to realize that she is living in a technologically advanced civilization. Wednesday afternoon, I picked her up to ride with me to run eight errands after school. It was an abbreviated teacher work day. Good thing. I got home later than a regular day at school.
We traveled to a nearby town for financial business, and The Pony asked for some breadsticks from Captain D's. He makes a meal of them. In fact, he eats them in the car. Can't even wait to get them home. So I have to ask for butter and a knife at the drive-thru. We motored merrily along, Mom and I gossiping and The Pony strapping on the old feedbag.
I pulled up at the bank drive-thru to deposit some cash. Mom, in the passenger seat, because what self-respecting eight-dollar daughter would put her mom in the back seat and her adolescent son in the front, turned to look at The Pony. You know that grandma-grandson look. How she adores him! "Is that good. Mmm...mmm. Is your tummy getting full?" And she made that sound like a grandma makes to represent tasting something tasty. Kind of smacking her lips in an imitation of eating.
"You know they can hear everything you say, right?" I put my deposit in the pneumatic tube canister thingy. Looked sideways at Mom. "They have a microphone so they can hear. I'd like to point out that it's not ME saying that stuff."
Mom's eyebrows went up. "Ohh...!"
"Lean up so they can see you! Don't be shy! Here. Come forward a little so they can see around me..." I patted her on the back. Leaned myself back against T-Hoe's driver's seat to give the drive-thru tellers a good view.
Mom was laughing so hard she couldn't talk. "I...I...oh...hahahahahaha!"
"This is how Genius got me laughing at home the other day. I was so sad about him leaving that I didn't even get mad when he asked if I was having a stroke." Mom laughed harder.
"Oh...oh...I...can't...stop..." Between the two of us, we were shaking that car more than two teenagers in a shaggin' wagon with a bumper sticker advising folks not to come a-knockin'.
The drive-thru tellers did not let on. I imagine they've heard stuff that would curl Cher's hair. As we drove away, Mom gasped, "Oh. I am exhausted. I'm not working in the yard when I get home. This was enough of a workout for me."
Laughter. The medicine Val dispenses without a license.
"Stuff that would curl Cher's hair." That would be great fodder for a book! You'll have to talk to the window people about it, maybe do some ghost writing, thus getting more cash to buy more bread sticks and 44 oz. Cokes. And remind Mom how much she just saved on antidepressants and ab work-out CD's.
ReplyDeleteAnd I am glad that you do! My friend and I went to the Dollar Store one day and I picked up a pack of underwear. Several pair in one package of different patterns and colors. While standing at the checkout register, I said to my friend, "Want to see my underwear?" She said, "I see you need a lot to cover your butt!" We both burst out laughing. The young little girl behind the register didn't even "register" the comedy going on in front of her! Robots, geriatric unfriendly, or what? Well, we laughed even harder at her when we got in the car! Where has all the camaraderie gone?
ReplyDeleteI laugh a lot and now, thanks to you, I'm referring to it as exercise.
ReplyDeleteLOL! I was laughing at your post and now I am laughing at knancy's.
ReplyDeleteLeenie,
ReplyDeleteGreat concept. However...you must not have been around during my feud with one of the drive-thru tellers. Every time I went through her line, I got a sing-songy, smirky, mocking, "Have nice DAA AAY!" I could not possibly talk to the tellers. If I heard that voice, I would exercise my wrath on her attitude.
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knancy,
Heh, heh. Showing your underwear at the check-out counter! Quite the feisty wench. Those young whippersnappers don't pick up social cues. I blame cell phones. You can't get nuance out of a flat screen, or see the twinkle in its eye.
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Stephen,
Don't forget to eat your vegetable: ketchup.
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Birdie,
She's a corker! Have you seen her underwear?