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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

“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.”

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.