A Blast From the Past to Remember My Mom

Today was a sad occasion for Val, what with this being the day one year ago that Mom passed away. One thing for certain, though. Mom would not want me to be sad on her account. So I'm going to have a laugh on her, and post something from my supersecret blog from way back in 2006. As you'll see...Mom didn't change her stripes.
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I am concerned about my Mom. She had a man doing some work on her plumbing. The last time that happened, she used a guy that people at her church recommended. He asked her for a blank check to go to the lumberyard. She refused. She DROVE him to the lumberyard, and paid for the parts herself. HooRah, Mom! You outsmarted that weasel!

Then he replaced the silver stopper in her white sink with a blue aluminum stopper. I guess that was his payback.

This recent man noticed the large metal safe she has standing in her family room. I mean large. My dad bought it from Southwestern Bell Telephone, where he worked, when they were going to throw it away. It's on wheels, and stands about 4 feet high. It's a big yellow monster.

This current workman wanted to know if Mom would sell that safe. She said no. He asked if he could see inside it. She said yes. WHAAAAAT!!! What was she THINKING? That rascal just wanted to see what valuables she had in it, I'm sure. Now don't go saying Val only sees the bad in people. Do YOU think it was appropriate to ask a little old lady to look inside her safe? I don't think so. I chewed her out for it.

Mom answered that she showed him she only has her important papers in the safe. She told him, "I just keep my papers here. I have safe-deposit boxes for my other things. Oh, and here's my pistol that I keep handy." She really does keep a pistol in her safe. I guess he got the message. Don't mess with Val's mom.

Now, I don't think Mom could ever shoot anybody with it. Her reaction in an emergency is to take a sharp inhale, with sound. It does not lend itself to words. It is just like a big sucking sound, and she freezes. Like when Genius choked on an orange slice that she let him suck on when he was 6 months old. Not a real orange slice. The gummy candy with sugar coating. She held it, with him sitting on her knee, and let him suck on the sugar. Only he sucked half that orange slice right into his 6-month-old trachea. His eyes got real big, panic-like. Mom made that sound, which stirred me up off the couch to flip Genius over on my forearm and WHACK him on the back, like the baby Heimlich. It worked. That orange slice shot across the room, and Genius started to cry. I shudder to think what might have happened if I wasn't there.

Anyhoo, my point is that if somebody broke in to rob my mom, she would suck in air and not do a durn thing except freeze. And what good is a gun if it's in the safe? Or what good is a safe if you leave it on the last number of the combination so you can get it open easier?

I thought Mom was careful. When she goes to the mailbox, or to pick up her paper, she carries her phone with her. She calls when she arrives home after a visit so we know she made it in the house. If she's talking to me on the phone, and her doorbell rings, she carries the phone with her to answer it, so an intruder will know that somebody is aware if he murders her. She says "we" on her answering machine message. If somebody comes to her door asking for help, she takes her phone and the phone book out on the porch for them. I THOUGHT she would know better than to open her safe for somebody. Thank goodness the crown jewels are not on her premises.

And while I'm ragging on my poor old mother, I must add that she has one very annoying habit. When she wants to convey that she hasn't been to town all day, she says, "I haven't been off the place." SNAP OUT OF IT! You live in a split-level brick house built in 1970, with harvest gold appliances, and a pink-and-black tile bathroom! It is not SOUTHFORK! It is not TARA! You do not have a Back 40! You have a state highway in your backyard, and an outer road in your front yard! Stop acting like you're a ranch owner!

Okay, here's another tale at my poor old mother's expense. She has a friend who brings her treats every so often. They used to teach together, and her friend brings her a meal of pork chops, or meat loaf, or some other home-cooked stuff every couple of weeks. The friend doesn't want to be a bother, so she hangs the meal on the door handle in a Walmart sack. The meal is in a foam tray like carryouts at a restaurant. So...one Saturday, she brought some giant homemade cinnamon rolls while Mom was OFF THE PLACE! She left them, wrapped individually in foil, in a bag on the front porch. She rang the doorbell and left, as always, thinking Mom would come up and open the door and bring them in.

Mom arrived home and called me. She said Friend had left her some cinnamon rolls, and that they smelled SO GOOD, but she was afraid to eat them. Of course I asked why, since she ate all the other stuff Friend brought with no ill effects.

"Well, when I got home, one was out of the bag, laying on the porch. The foil was peeled back, and a couple of bites were gone. I'm afraid that stray dog got into it, or maybe that ground squirrel that lives under the porch."

WHOA, Mom! Do you really think an animal took that cinnamon roll out of the bag, unwrapped part of it, took a couple of bites, and then walked off and left it? I DON'T THINK SO! Maybe it was a two-legged stray. Animals would have shaken the bag around, chewed into it, wrapper and all, and scattered it over the yard. I don't know about her. But the thought of someBODY eating it was more creepy than an animal. Did I mention that one time, my dad had to call the cops to come get a drunk bum who was leaning on our mailbox and wouldn't leave?

Okay, now you don't have to tell me how you have a pet that is smart enough to take a bite of cinnamon roll. I worked with a lady at the unemployment office in South St. Louis who had 3 Yorkshire Terriers. One of the little Yorkies was actually a "terror" instead of a terrier. One morning Shirley set her purse on the kitchen table, with her lunch sandwich down inside in a baggie. She was sidetracked for a moment, and when she returned to the kitchen, there was that little terror, sitting in the middle of the kitchen table, chewing on the sandwich. The purse was not messed up, and the baggie had been opened, not chewed through. But that was in the CITY, people, and not out here in the sticks, where there are no sophisticated Yorkies running wild.

And where elderly ladies open up their safes to show workmen the inside.

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Strangely enough, I consulted my estranged BFF Google to find that story on my really early supersecret blog, and after spiffing it up a bit, I looked at the original date.

It was February 3, 2006.

Let the record show that your five-dollar daughter misses you, Mom.