MY FRIEND

Ahhh, this button. See this charming little rascal?

Mom used to communicate by voice. When I was near.

But now, she sends e-mails. Some contain opinions. Some contain “what I should do.”

Her pushy comments make perfect sense…. To the unicorns, who dwell beyond the leprechaun forest.

I always read the first few words, to get a feel for how annoying reading the entire e-mail would be.

Then, I reach for my friend. He’s black and square, with white letters. Nothing can describe my ecstasy — when I click him, and Mom floats away.

Until her next opinion.

MAFIA

Mom would make a great mafia boss.

She can do whatever she wants.

When you mention it later, she tells you:

“That never happened.”

And if you insist it happened, she starts screaming and blames you for “Making things up.”

But sometimes you have witnesses.

In that case, she intimidates the witnesses. Until they remember it her way.

CLEAN – Email

Apparently, Mom’s house is clean. I just received this E-mail:

“I’m ecstatic. the new cleaning lady came. Terrific!!! She does not speak English, so she can’t tell anyone how much I NEEDED HER TO CLEAN (she is one of the neighbors’ recommendations. We finally got the liner in the can cubboard changed. Yippee!!! I asked if she could come back next Sat., 7 to 11am. She will call as she has a 10-yr-old. Her husband is a truck driver, very, very nice people. I pay 80 +$5 for gas for 4 hours, but I gave her $90 as she did stay 20 minutes longer. She and I cleaned, but did not get to the kitchen floors. The shower doors look terrific. More later.”

I’m on the edge of my seat.

CANDLESTICK

I didn’t know what a candlestick was – until Mom’s candlesticks went missing.

The prime suspect? Mom’s cleaning lady.

Mom brought it up again during Christmas dinner. Even though the candlesticks went missing 22 years ago.

But when I say they probably got lost, Mom still yells: “That AND a milk pitcher was missing! Someone was taking them.”

My question is, if you’re going to steal, why not steal something better than a candlestick?

But this Christmas, Mom revealed that it probably wasn’t the cleaning lady. It was the cleaning lady’s FRIEND.

MOM: “She asked if she could bring a friend to the house while she cleaned. I said yes. Never let anyone working at your house bring friends – because THOSE are the ones that steal.”

Call me — if you’re driving in your neighborhood, and you notice someone lighting candles while pouring milk.

BUMPS

If you go somewhere with Mom, make sure SHE is driving.

Because if you drive?

Every bump you hit – she screams at you.

Yelling would make sense in a vast, smooth parking lot – if you locate the only bump and purposely hit it.

But one day, we got lost. Leaving Newark (NJ) Airport. Have you driven around Newark? The pavement is demolished, like the moon’s surface.

So I’m driving across this bridge, and there’s ten zillion potholes, like a meteor shower annihilated the road. There’s ZERO SPACE between bumps. Wall-to-wall.

It was so destroyed, I started laughing, “Can you believe this?”

And then I committed a sin.

I hit a bump. And not just one bump. It was more like:

BUMP BUMP BUMP BUMP BUMP BUMP BUMP BUMP BUMP BUMP BUMP BUMP BUMP BUMP BUMP BUMP BUMP BUMP BUMP BUMP BUMP BUMP BUMP BUMP

And Mom loses it, flips out, screaming: “STOP HITTING THE BUMPS!!!!!!!!”

So I assured her: “I’m trying!”

And I hit the gas.

MOM’S HOUSE

I took this photo at Christmas.

These plants are sitting in Mom’s kitchen.

They look nurtured.

During dinner I tried to stop myself from reacting to my mother. Reacting usually sets her off.

So I focused next to my water glass, on these reindeer.

SLOW DOWN

For Christmas, I spent 3 days at Mom’s house.

Oddly, she didn’t involve the police. I left before it got rough.

But while I was there, I noticed a new hobby.

Mom talks. Non-stop.

If she’s awake, she’s talking.

Yet she doesn’t care if YOU’RE awake. If you’re asleep, she yells upstairs until you wake up. If you’re in the bathroom, she hollers louder, to make sure you hear – while you shower or use the toilet.

In the house. In the car. During movies. Talking talking.

And you’re supposed to sit there as the torrent of words bounces around the room.

But here’s the problem: You’re not supposed to talk.

Because when you break your silence and say something, Mom jumps on it, telling you “SLOW DOWN. SLOW DOWN.”

To shut you up – so she can talk more.

PRONOUNS

Mom doesn’t use names. She speaks in pronouns.

MOM: “Did you hear? SHE couldn’t find her shoe and then she fell down the stairs, and HE didn’t even care! And THEY were standing there the whole time and didn’t help!”

So, after a ten-minute story, you need to guess who the story’s about.

ME: “Are you talking about your cousin Paula?”

MOM: “I’m talking about the neighbor’s cleaning lady – Becky!”

ME: “And who is THEY, her family?”

MOM: “THEY is the Harlem Boys’ Choir!”

It always turns out to be someone she’s met only once. Someone you’ve never heard of.

DRUGS – Part 1

One day in my high school parking lot, I noticed my mother emerge from my school. She’d been crying.

“Here we go,” I mumbled. I didn’t approach her. She drove away.

Later at home, I began probing. What she was doing, walking around my school in tears? I feared the worst.

There were two possibilities. She’d either been trying to convince school staff that “My son is a bad person who yells at me and calls me names like Douchebag,” or she panicked, and decided to spread rumors that “My son masturbates.”

I was hoping for the name-calling rumor, not the masturbation publicity. I probably got both. In fact, I was afraid to ask what Mom had done.

Did I mention that all this occurred during junior year, the time when students pad their resumes to get into the best possible college? Some parents were helping their kids write college essays. My parent was walking around school, spreading sensational masturbation claims to anyone who would give her attention.

I pretended I never saw Mom crying. Until the next day. When the school psychologist called me into her office.

And began asking questions about drugs.

You see, the only explanation my mother could find for my rude and stubborn reactions, was that I must be on drugs.

There’s no way a person of sound mind would react negatively to her round-the-clock campaign of accusations and harassment. Normal people enjoy getting falsely accused of fantastic crimes, and savor the thrill of round-the-clock gibberish spouted by someone they can’t get rid of.

So the school psychologist kept asking about drugs. Later that day when I got home, I asked “Mom, did you tell my school I’m on drugs?”

“Nooooooo! I would NEVER tell your school you’re on drugs.”

“Because mom, the school psychologist called me into her office and started asking about drugs.”

“Son, I would never tell anyone at your school that you’re on drugs. I would NEVER say you’re on drugs.”

“Mom, they told me you came to school yesterday – and said I’m on drugs.”

“I didn’t tell them you were on drugs!!! How many times do I have to repeat myself?!?”

Deeply offended, she fell silent. A long, somber pause. Then she corrected me:

“I asked if THEY thought you were on drugs.”

DRUGS – Part 2

So I was still trying to get into colleges.

But instead of padding my college applications with “glee club” and stuff I didn’t care about, I was sabotaged by my mother.

Now, my teachers didn’t want me in charge of anything. A peer group adviser – a senior position helping freshmen? Not THIS senior – he was ON DRUGS according to his mother. I got nixed from that.

College admissions people take activities seriously. It really helps you. But not me. Not with the mother I have.

No, you see, I’m a bad person. If strangers see goodness in me, they’re just confused. My mother will set them right. She sees the evil in me, and she’s here to warn my school, and others, about me.

Except Mom forgot one thing – as she often did.

I’m smarter than she is.

So when Mom wasn’t home, I went to the kitchen and got a large Ziploc bag.

I packed the big Ziploc bag with white flour from my mother’s cooking supplies.

The bag looked like $100,000 worth of cocaine. Like a kilo. Like an old Miami Vice episode.

I hid this huge bag of “coke” in the back of my dresser drawer. And I covered it up with all the stuff in my drawer so it looked concealed. Like “Here’s a large shipment of pixie dust, let’s put it right here in our top drawer and hide it under an issue of Car & Driver.”

A week later, I checked. The huge bag of coke was missing.

DRUGS – Part 3

So the bag of “coke” was missing from my drawer.

I fantasized about my mother arriving at the police station with a hundred grand worth of cocaine in a Ziploc bag.

Her theory finally proven – her son is on drugs! Better yet – her son is DEALING drugs. Jackpot!

The cops might throw away a gram of coke, but they’re NOT throwing away a kilo. They must test it – and figure out how this teenage suburban kid is sitting on that much yay.

So they test it. Probably while my mother waits. They test it with their little blue chemical test kit that I saw on TV. But it doesn’t turn blue.

And they say hmm, and they taste it, and it tastes like the rim of a poorly baked cake. Like when their daughter screwed up and made cruddy tasteless cookies in her Easy Bake oven.

And the cops return to my mother’s waiting room and share the news – it’s not cocaine. It’s cooking flour. It’s not worth $100,000. It’s worth less than a dollar. Does she want it back? Because it’s probably hers. And oh, we’re not going to prosecute your son, because having flour is permitted.

No punishment. No rehab. He’s not a drug dealer.

Now here’s the question. At that moment….

Is my mother happy?

Or sad.

Oh, I forgot one thing. When I hid the bag of flour in my dresser, I attached a post-it note that said “cocaine.”

OSAMA BIN LEGO

When Mom gets really annoying, I call my terrorist friend.

His name is Osama Bin Lego.

Yesterday, after Mom yelled at me for an hour, she grabbed a spoon, sat down with a heaping bowl of ice cream…..

Then noticed Osama Bin Lego was standing in it.

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TRUST

Mom doubts everything I tell her.

But she believes everything on TV.

If I tell her to drink more water, she decides water kills you early.

But if a TV character gets a sex change, Mom considers becoming a man.

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PETS

My entire childhood, I wanted a dog. Or a cat. Something with fur.

But Mom was allergic.

Until I found out she isn’t.

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DOUBT

When I say something obviously true, Mom can’t claim I’m wrong. Especially in front of witnesses.

So, she sheds doubt.

ME: “Hey Mom, if you walk back into that bookstore, screaming at the manager and threatening to call the police, he won’t want to help you again.”

MOM: “You don’t KNOW that.”

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EMAIL – HOLIDAY CHEER

Holidays usually end with Mom pitching a fit and calling the police on me.

Last week I told her – I’m not coming home for Thanksgiving.

She Emailed back:

“This is your home as well, unless you want to keep calling it “YOUR mOTHer’s HOUSE.” If that persists, then I should leave it exclusively to your sister.”

She’s still mastering the Caps Lock.

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THANKSGIVING SPECIAL

For Thanksgiving, some mothers serve special gravy. Some moms make special stuffing.

But my Mom pulls her special stunt.

This year, I didn’t go home for Thanksgiving.

Maybe because during college, I always used to.

And a good stay at Mom’s house was when she didn’t badger the police to “just take” me.

Yet oddly, with all that animosity, when it came time for my return flight to college, my mother would pull this stunt.

I’d have my bags packed, and I’d be sitting in the living room. Mom would start some random argument about nothing. But no matter how I replied, she’d stand up and say:

“Well if that’s how you’re gonna talk, I’m not driving you to the airport!”

Then she’d stomp from the room, leaving me stressing out – I had a ticking clock until my flight left for college, and no way to reach the airport.

The first time, it was annoying. The second time, aggravating. But the third vacation she pulled this, I made a solemn (and secret) vow. Mom would never get away with this again.

So the next holiday vacation, I was home packing my bags. But before the traditional argument, I pulled my sister aside, and told her “Listen, mom’s gonna start an argument and refuse to drive me to the airport. When she does, will you drive me?”

My sister agreed that yes, she would drive me to the airport.

So, like clockwork, my mother starts the idiotic random argument, then right on cue, she delivers her line:

“Well, I’m not driving you to the airport!”

And politely, I tell her that’s fine, because my sister agreed to drive me.

So I take my suitcase and head for the door.

And my mother goes ballistic, corners my sister, screaming at her: “You’re giving him AN OUT!”

There’s no place like home.

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TIBET

After the Dalai Lama dies, Buddhist monks believe he gets reincarnated.

So they search Tibet for the kid carrying the Dalai Lama’s spirit.

To find the right child, they give tests. They lay junk on the table, but they include the dead Dalai Lama’s glasses and his favorite bowl.

If the kid picks those items, it means he’s the Dalai Lama.

During high school, I tried to determine if my mother was the reincarnation of Hitler.

I decided to use Hitler’s glasses. Turns out, they’re in a museum in Canada. Not for sale.

Then I figured, maybe a lock of Hitler’s hair? I called a collector in New York. He wanted some insane amount of money for the hair, so I told him to forget it.

Discouraged, I put 7 bowls of food on the kitchen table. 6 bowls had American food, and one bowl had sauerkraut.

“Hey Mom, pick a bowl.”

She picked the sauerkraut.

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ESP

Today, my mother found a new approach.

I shared an opinion she didn’t agree with.

But instead of explaining how I’m wrong, she said:

“You don’t believe that.”

And changed the subject.

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EMAIL – PEANUT

I just received this.

I have no idea what this Email from Mom means:

“Those elephant peanuts are fun to peel and not fattening, better than chips or doritos for your health. They had them on my tray in Italy, along with clementines and apples.”

I’m ignoring it.

It’s probably some kind of trap.

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JUST SO YOU KNOW

Mom always says “Just so you know……” then gives advice nobody wants.

Today, she told me “Just so you know, those shoelaces won’t fit those shoes.”

In fact, she has absolutely no clue if the shoelaces will fit. She just THINKS they won’t fit. And feels compelled to warn me.

So I don’t get halfway done lacing the shoe, run out of lace, and commit suicide.

I don’t want to “know.”

I want to NOT know.

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TOASTER

Do you read the news?

Do you remember the story about the toaster that spontaneously burst into flames and burned down a house – just because it was left plugged in?

Neither do I. Because it never happened.

An early warning sign that your family member has issues?

They unplug things.

It starts with the toaster.

At first, Mom only unplugged things for vacations. But then, long afternoons shopping caused an unplugging.

I’d come home from the movies…. The TV seemed broken, the clock was blank, I’d put toast in the toaster, come back 5 minutes later to find untoasted bread.

So I asked her, “Why even have a toaster if it’s that dangerous? Would you keep an alligator in your kitchen?”

And unplugging the clock? Generally, clocks keep to themselves.

But it got worse.

After years of just unplugging the toaster, she started MOVING IT AWAY from the wall socket.

To prevent the toaster from plugging itself back in.

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MONEY

Mom sent me some packages at college.

She would call, and tell me “I sent you a box with your blue pants and your sneakers. The postage was five dollars and seventy-two cents.”

Another box. The postage on that one was seven dollars and thirty cents.

The next semester she sent a box and told me the postage was nine dollars and three cents.

After a while, I started wondering why my mother was quoting postage.

It gradually became clear that her idea of how people respect each other is based on money. For instance, if I give you $20, you respect me. But if I give you $40, you respect me twice as much.

But what if I give you $100 ? That’s a huge sum, so then you owe me all sorts of favors and you must be “on call.” Also, for that amount, I tell you what to do, and you have to obey. If you have opinions, I ignore them and tell you what opinions to have.

In other words, for $100 you become my mother’s actual slave, for as long as she remembers she gave you that money.

But sometimes you refuse to obey. In that case, Mom starts an argument, screams the specific amounts she gave you, and that’s supposed to snap you back into obeying her.

For many years, that worked. Since I couldn’t take more arguments.

But these days, she tries the same exact thing – except she doesn’t give me money.

So she starts yelling, “Are you forgetting that I GAVE YOU…….” and then she stops mid-sentence because she didn’t give me anything.

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SMOKE

Mom hated smoke.

Every time we visited a restaurant, the hostess would seat her, then the “I smell cigarette smoke, so we need another table” dance would begin.

That’s why, at the first table, I never took off my jacket, never touched the silverware. Because it was only a matter of time before Mom complained of smoke.

The smoke fetish reached its peak one night. We had visitors in town, staying at the house. My mother awoke, smelling cigarette smoke.

She searched every room in the house and woke everybody up – looking for whoever was hiding and smoking that cigarette. She sniffed windows. She sniffed the attic. She sniffed the basement. The garage was also sniffed.

She finally stood there in the upstairs hallway, attempting to triangulate, by smell, the location of the cigarette. Our houseguests, myself and my sister were standing in the hallway, too drowsy to understand the urgency, denying that we smoked a cigarette. I was 10.

The next day, Mom investigated further. It turned out that the night before, our next-door neighbor smoked a cigarette in his kitchen. His windows were open, so a few particles of smoke exited his house, traveled 50 feet to our house, and somehow got thru my mother’s locked window.

This smoke controversy continued for 2 decades. Every day. In diners, at the doctor’s office, at the library. She’d always create a scene based upon some phantom cigarette that nobody could find.

But the low point came while driving on the highway. Mom announced that someone was “smoking in the car.” Except there were only 3 of us. Mom, me, and my little sister. We were children – sitting right there, clearly NOT smoking.

Then we realized, she didn’t mean THIS CAR. She meant someone was smoking in THAT car – another car, half a mile ahead

Mom pulled off the highway, into a rest stop. To give that other car time to travel farther ahead – so we wouldn’t smell smoke.

Then one day, I came home from college, went outside, onto the back patio….

And found Mom smoking a pack of Marlboro Lights.

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THE FINGER

When I was 9 years old, I gave some kid the finger.

My little sister saw this. She told my mother that I invented the gesture of giving the middle finger.

And my mother pretended to believe her. My mother stood there, scolding me for inventing the middle finger. She started grilling me – why did I invent something so mean?

I just stood there, thinking “Does Mom hate me so much that she’ll pretend I invented the middle finger, then yell at me for it?”

Instead of inventing the finger, I would’ve invented a Mom who doesn’t mess with my head.

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ADVICE

After college, I finally got a “big job.” I was all excited.

But people kept quitting because the place sucked. So after months of pain, I decided I’d rather be dead or homeless. I walked out.

I was depressed. That job was so horrible, I was afraid of other jobs.

But my mother had a solution. She called me, we sat down, and after much suspense, she revealed her plan…

She told me, “You’re good looking. You should model.”

I thought she was kidding. “Mom I weigh 5 pounds, I can’t model. Even waif models are in shape, but I’m too lazy to get in shape.”

My mother replied, “So model sitting down.”

“Mom, you can’t model SITTING DOWN, you have to walk and stand. They can’t follow you around with a chair and keep putting you in the chair right before they take the picture. I can’t be a model, I’m too thin and I don’t look like a waif.”

She didn’t miss a beat: “So be a hat model.”

“Mom…..” I trailed off, defeated.

Here’s a tip. If you encounter someone about to kill themselves, spend the day building them back up, promising you’ve found a brilliant solution to their woe.

Then lean forward. And whisper…. “Become a hat model.”

: : : : : : : : : : :

NAP

Mom is super nervous and aggressive.

You cannot be in the car without her dominating every moment. It starts with constant chitchat:

“Do you see the autumn leaves? I need more coffee beans, Janet went to Istanbul and I can’t find the postcard she sent have you seen it just lean forward so I can search oh bob’s brother went to the grocery store and they tried to overcharge him for parsley but he noticed the sign had tipped over but he thinks it was deliberate …..”

But the last car trip we took, Mom fell silent.

We were on the highway doing 70 mph.

And my mother was sleeping. On the steering wheel.

So I woke her up.

Mad that I woke her, she snapped “Stop bothering me!”

When I explained that she was driving 70 miles an hour while asleep, she blurted, “It was just a minute! Leave me alone!”

Then she focused on the road ahead….

And began snoring.

: : : : : : : : : : :

THE SHRINK

After years of mental torment by my mother, I wound up seeing a shrink.

I felt paranoid. Like I was always being watched.

Like everything I did was being recorded for use against me.

After hearing the stories about my Mom, the shrink told me, “Maybe you’re worried people are out to get you….. because someone is.”

: : : : : : : : : : :

DIARRHEA

When I was 21, I was stressed about getting a job after college.

That summer, I accompanied my Mom to a pharmacy. As we reached the front of the line, Mom placed her purchases by the register, and suddenly remembered my stomach had been upset – because I was incredibly stressed out.

So she loudly asks the pharmacist “What’s best for diarrhea?” And he places a couple products on the counter. Mother glances at them, exclaiming loudly, “That won’t work, he’s been crapping for weeks and he won’t go to the doctor! He has uncontrollable trots.”

I swear those were her words. Crapping for weeks. The customers enjoyed it.

The pharmacist paused, looked straight at me, and said bluntly “Get checked out.” The subtext of his comment was “You have AIDS.”

So the lesson here is that if you’re a parent, and you want to bond with your son, take him to a busy store, then suddenly gesture at your kid and announce to everyone that your son has been shitting without interruption for weeks, and extreme measures are needed to stem his diarrhea flow.

You’ll meet people, and your son will love you.

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EMAIL – HOME SECURITY

I got an Email today.

Mom is worried because her neighbor got robbed. She Emailed me:

“Your SISter was scared last night. Made me shut and lock the doors early. I’d better find out from the neighbors what the burglars were after. It is usually cash, tvs and computers. Remember the time they left a tv in the woods and came back for it later. The cops were waiting for them.”

I’m not a cruel person. So I advised my mom to install stronger doorlocks on her house. She replied:

“Son – If I do the doors, what’s to stop someone coming through the basement or upstairs windows???”

I replied:

“Your personality.”

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