Not The Mama

Pam: I’m always telling you unflattering stories about my boss Archie so I thought I’d tell you a different kind.

Ann: You mean he did something right?

Pam: Sort of…he was telling me today this past weekend he took on two full days of babysitting for his two grandsons.

Ann: Really? Overnight?

Pam: Yep.

Ann: That’s quite a job! How old are they now?

Pam: I think they’re going into first and third grade. The younger one might just be going into Kindergarten…I’m not sure.

Ann: How’d it go?

Pam: It sounds like it went fine. I guess he does this occasionally when his son and daughter-in-law drive to a nearby city to check on her folks. Saturday night he took them to one of those pizza places that has all the kid’s arcade games.

Ann: I know that would wear ME out and Archie’s got a few years on me. The boys are old enough to tell time. I think I would’ve had to move the clocks and put them to bed early.

Pam: That shouldn’t have been a problem. Archie’s daughter-in-law left strict instructions for a 9:30 bedtime. She tries to keep them on a regular schedule. That’s probably why they’re so well behaved. She really is a good mom.

Ann: So he only had to last until 9:30? I could probably manage that.

Pam: But he went way past it. Being the fun-loving grandpa, they were all up playing until nearly midnight. But Archie says it’s okay because after 9:30 they were all playing in bed.

Ann: Oh no! I don’t think their mom is going to accept the technicality. Did she find out?

Pam: Well at lunch on Sunday, just before their parents came home, Archie told the boys, “Remember, if Mama asks, you guys were in bed by 9:30. That’s our story and we’re sticking to it!”

Ann: Well, I guess that’s a version of the truth. How’d it go over? Did the boys remember what to say?

Pam: The little one remembered too well. When his mother asked what time they got to bed, he said “We were in bed by 9:30. That’s our story and we’re sticking to it!”

A Foolish Mom And Her Money

Ann: My house looks like it’s in a horror movie. There are literally thousands of furry caterpillars covering the entire outside.

Pam: Is that from the webworms we saw a couple weeks ago that were all over that huge tree out front?

Ann: Yeah, it’s pretty creepy. I wish I could at least charge them rent.

Pam: Better yet, gather them up and sell ‘em.

Ann: Who on earth would pay for caterpillars?

Pam: Oh how soon you forget. Remember when Ross was about seven? I made the mistake of agreeing to step into the pet store to look at the puppies. But Ross became fascinated with the anoles.

Ann: What the heck’s an anole?

Pam: That’s a fancy pet store term for a common garden lizard. They seem to think that using an exotic name will convince a gullible, indulgent mother to make the purchase.

Ann: Well, apparently it worked because I remember when you had those particular pets.

Pam: It started out simply enough – a clear plastic cage and two lizards. Then they tried to sell me ceramic sticks for them to crawl on.

Ann: Heck, I had plenty of real ones I’d have sold you.

Pam: I said I had an endless supply of sticks in my yard. Believe it or not, they said outdoor sticks weren’t sterile and the anoles would get sick. Ross looked up at me in a panic.

Ann: What, did Ross think the lizards in the yard were taking high-powered antibiotics? So did you buy the fake sticks?

Pam: No, but I must confess, to ease his mind, we boiled EVERY stick before it went into the cage.

Ann: So how does this help me with my caterpillars?

Pam: I’m getting there. We bought freeze-dried lizard food but the stupid lizards wouldn’t eat it and after a couple of days their little tummies were starting to cave in. So it was back to the pet shop for advice.

They told me the lizards might prefer live food and sold me a margarine tub full of mealworms. I had to keep them in the fridge so they would stay dormant until I put them in the cage. Then they’d warm up, wiggle and draw the lizards’ attention.


Ann: So did that make the lizards fat and happy?

Pam: Only one, the other one must have been a gourmet and mealworms must not have qualified. So it was back to the pet store yet again.

This time, they told me that he probably wanted to ‘hunt’ his own food and they sold me a clear plastic bag with three live crickets.

Ann: Yuck!

Pam: Yeah, it was nasty but it worked. Both lizards loved ‘em. Unfortunately it wasn’t ‘cricket season’ so I couldn’t gather them myself. I had to stop by the pet store every couple of days for fresh crickets. Well, that got old fast, so believe it or not, I bought a second cage to fill with crickets.


Ann: So what’s the life expectancy of a cricket in captivity?

Pam: I assume you mean prior to being put in the lizard cage. That leads to the next absurdity. To keep the crickets alive while they awaited their fate, I had to buy cricket food.

Ann: Let me get this straight, you bought food for the food?

Pam: I told you it was absurd. This is what mothers do.

Ann: You forget, I’m a mom too, and I can honestly say I never had dormant mealworms sleeping in my fridge or bought food to feed the food for our pets.

Pam: Well, I said I’m a gullible, indulgent mother.

Ann: In that case, back to my caterpillars. Have I got a deal for you!

Manure Happens

Ann: I just hung up with my cousin Cindy. We were reminiscing about when we were kids. I always thought my aunt was the coolest, but the more I hear from Cindy about her mom, the more I wonder if we’re talking about the same woman.

Pam: A kid’s perspective on their parents is always very different than anyone else’s. I keep telling my kids that the permissive and fun-loving man who is their grandfather is NOT the man who raised me.

Ann: Won’t it be fun when we’re permissive and fun-loving?

Pam: Hey, we already are, we’re just wise enough not to let our kids see it.

Ann: Apparently, I got my wisdom from my aunt. Cindy was telling me that she and her brothers and sister used to absolutely hate working in the garden when they were kids. But their mom counted on the vegetables to help feed their large family so they had to pitch in.

Pam: I love gardening but according to my kids, I only grow “useless” flowers.

Ann: So one year my aunt told the kids that the circus was in town. She said if they were good and helped in the garden all week without complaining, she’d take them into town on Saturday to see the clowns and animals.

Pam: Sounds pretty cool to me.

Ann: Just wait….So Cindy and the other kids were very excited and gave her the most enthusiastic help they ever had. They spent the week weeding, hoeing, picking, and watering. Cindy’s brother even suggested they whistle or sing while they work just to cinch the deal.
Pam: The old ‘whistle while you work’ bit… had they just seen Snow White?

Ann: When Saturday came, true to her word, she loaded up all the kids into the station wagon and drove into town. As the huge striped tent got closer, the kids got more excited, until their mom drove right past the parking area and around to the back of the circus.

Pam: That’s odd!

Ann: She told the kids she’d made an arrangement with the animal trainer for them to see the elephants up close.

Pam: How fun! I guess the whistling paid off! I should start whistling at the office. Maybe I could get a raise.

Ann: Knowing the men where you work, they’d probably think you were flirting. But that could have the same result. Go for it.

So anyway, they jump out of the station wagon and their mom calls them around to the back of the car where she’d opened the hatch back. Cindy thought maybe it was full of rejected veggies from the garden to feed the animals.

Pam: That was a good idea.

Ann: But there were only a couple of huge galvanized tubs and a pile of shovels.

Pam: Ohhhh…I don’t like the sound of this…

Ann: Yep. Turns out, the arrangement with the trainer was to come and “remove” all the elephant dung for her garden. Cindy and the other kids spent hours scooping the poop.

Pam: But she said she’d take them to the circus.

Ann: Technically she did. She never said she’d take them to see the circus she’d said she’d take them to see the animals and clowns. And they did see them. The performers all waved to my cousins as they paraded passed them into the back flap of the tent for the show.

Thoughtful Cruelty

Pam: I’m having a moral dilemma regarding my mother-in-law. I can’t decide if I’m being kind or being cruel.

Ann: Only you would be struggling between two such extremes. Most people know pretty instinctively if they’re doing the right thing or not.

Pam: Not everything’s so cut and dried. I actually ran this one past my book group last night and they had strong opinions on both sides.

Ann: Okay. I’m sure you’d guess which side I’d come down on in any debate. But give it to me anyway.

Pam: No, I really can’t begin to guess what you’d say on this one. Here’s the deal. You know my mother-in-law is elderly, totally blind, and speaks no English at all. Needless to say, it fairly limits what we can do together.

Ann: I remember meeting her at Ross’ graduation party. We couldn’t really talk or communicate but she seemed very sweet.

Pam: She is! I love her to death but sometimes I don’t know what to do with her when she visits. She’s real sensitive about not wanting to be a burden. She hates the thought of adding to anyone’s workload. In fact, she really wants to help.

Ann: So let her help.

Pam: I do. Usually on the first day or so she cooks up a storm. But needless to say it requires constant assistance with finding things in the unfamiliar kitchen, and reading and translating the labels on cans and packages to her. Someone has to be at her side continuously and that’s tough to do.

Ann: Yeah, it’d be hard to justify staying home from work all day just to help your mother-in-law cook dinner. Couldn’t the kids pitch in?

Pam: They do and they’re great when they’re around. But they have busy lives too. I really shouldn’t complain. She just wants to relieve me of work. But in reality she just causes more.

Ann: I hate to put it this way, but it’s kind of like having a two year old following you around the house wanting to “help” you clean.

Pam: That’s it exactly! I appreciate her intentions but I can do everything a lot faster just doing it myself. But I did find something she can help with that doesn’t require much of me. That’s where my dilemma comes in.

Ann: Tell me you didn't send her up a ladder cleaning the second story exterior windows?

Pam: Very funny! No, she’s actually pretty good at folding laundry. She sits on the couch and can carefully feel her way. First she figures out if it’s a shirt or shorts or whatever. Then she feels for seams to turn it right side out. And then feels how big it is to tell whose pile it goes into. She’s remarkable really.

Ann: Great. So you found something she can do to help without requiring a lot of your time. How’s that a dilemma?

Pam: Well, we only have so much laundry. Bret and I dry clean most of our stuff and the kids wash their own work uniforms. So I gave her a load of towels that had just finished up in the dryer and she was so happy to help.

Ann: So far so good…

Pam: So thirty minutes later when she very excitedly asked for the next load, I did what I’m not sure is kind or cruel….I took the clean towels she had just finished folding, tumbled them in the dryer until they were warm, and then gave them back to her to fold again.

Ann: Are you serious? Couldn’t she tell?

Pam: Could you tell one towel from another folding them blindfolded?

Ann: I guess not…but you’re right. I can see where that’s sort of a mean thing to do, but if it made her happy to help, maybe not.

Pam: See what I mean?

Ann: She must have thought you guys use an awful lot of towels.

Pam: She mentioned that and I told her it was the kids and their friends going swimming everyday. So, truth, am I a terrible person?

Ann: Based on this? Probably not… Now based on other stuff, that’s a different question!

Readers - We'd love to know what you think about this. Please send us your comments. -Pam and Ann

Gone Bananas

Pam: Dottie was telling me about taking her mother to Hawaii last week.

Ann: I’m so jealous. Did they have a good time?

Pam: The trip was fine. But Dottie’s mom is such a tightwad it made Dottie nuts.

Ann: I thought this trip was Dottie’s Mother’s Day gift to her mom.

Pam: It was. But Dottie’s mom is even tighter with Dottie’s money than she is with her own.

Ann: My mom can be the same way.

Pam: They were shopping for souvenirs and Dottie was considering buying some painted ceramic hibiscus flowers for her friends. Her mom actually suggested she buy the broken ones off the clearance table and then have the store ship them so that people would just figure they were broken in the mail.

Ann: That’s certainly thrifty and pretty clever. Except wouldn’t they notice that the broken pieces were missing?


Pam: Leave it to you to think of the technicalities. What bugged Dottie the most was her mom kept waking her up early everyday so they wouldn’t sleep through the free continental breakfast. She told her she’d have gladly paid for breakfast for another hour’s sleep. But her mom wouldn’t think of it.

Ann: I think I’d have had to drug my mother if I was Dottie.

Pam: It probably crossed her mind. By the end of the week, she was pretty glad to be headed home. When they finally got to the airport, they went to that special area to mail some fresh pineapple she’d bought for some friends back home.

Ann: Yeah, they’re really strict about bringing fruit and vegetation back to the mainland. I couldn’t even bring my lei home.

Pam: Yep. So Dottie stopped to ship these pineapples, while her mom sat nearby. When she finished up, her mom had disappeared. She finally caught up to her at the security check point on the way to the gate. She was being finger printed in a glass office next to the x-ray machines!

Ann: Finger printed! As in being arrested? What on earth did she do?

Pam: She tried to go through security with a banana in her pocket.

Ann: That's quite a crime alright. Armed and dangerous.

Pam: When they found the banana in her pocket, the guards told her to go back out to the lobby area and either eat it or throw it away. When Dottie got there, they told her they had made it very clear to her mother that it was against the law to take the banana past the security check point.

Ann: So what had she done with it?

Pam: Believe it or not, she had walked back towards the ticket counter, stopped in plain sight of the guards, put the banana in her other pocket, and tried to get through security again.

Ann: You’re kidding. Is she a little... forgive me, 'bananas'?

Pam: Apparently they were pretty annoyed with her and told her again that it was not a game and that she was to get rid of the banana one way or another before she attempted to pass through security again.

Ann: So how’d she get arrested?

Pam: She walked back towards the ticket counter, out of the sight of the security check point this time, put the banana in the hood of her jacket, and for a third time tried to pass through security with the stupid banana.

Ann: That’s hysterical! What was she thinking?

Pam: That’s what Dottie asked her. She said, “What is your problem Mom? It’s not as though that thing is stuffed with diamonds!” Dottie told me she was going to say cocaine but figured they were in enough trouble.

Ann: So what was so important about that banana?

Pam: Apparently Dottie’s mom picked it up at the hotel’s free continental breakfast. She told Dottie, “It’s not really free you know. You’re paying for it in the price of the room. If you don’t take the food you’re getting ripped off!”

Ann: She’s right but I’d say that’s frugal to the extreme.

Pam: Well Dottie explained to the guards that her mother was on medication and apologized profusely for loosing track of her. She neglected to explain she was only on blood pressure medicine.

Ann: So they let her go?

Pam: They released her but wrote some sort of ticket. Dottie says that that “free banana” so far has cost her a fifteen hundred dollar retainer for the lawyer, with more to come.

Ann: Hopefully she’ll win on ‘appeal’.

Pam: Groan

Disturbing The Peace

Pam: There are volumes written about how to cope with the empty nest. Why doesn’t anyone write a book about the suddenly un-empty nest?

Ann: Having both kids home from college is a real adjustment isn’t it?

Pam: I finally began to discover and appreciate the little perks of having my beloved children hundreds and hundreds of miles away. Mainly that the house stays just as I left it. Then they’re suddenly back and I feel robbed…literally.

Ann: Robbed of what?

Pam: Headbands, razors, restaurant leftovers, short slips, umbrellas, toothpaste, cell phone chargers, you name it! I miss the kids desperately all year long but I sure did love having things remain right where I left them.

Ann: You’re right. It gets worse after they’ve been away at school. I guess it’s the culture in a dorm or in a shared apartment. It’s pretty much what’s mine is yours and visa versa. They get used to just taking what they like.

Pam: That’s true. I remember when Ross left for school. Kate was still in high school and she was just at the age where she started to ‘borrow’ a lot of my stuff without permission. Bret wasn’t very understanding about how frustrating it was for me.

Ann: He thought it was no big deal, huh?

Pam: Yep. Then when Ross came home after his first semester away, suddenly Bret’s black socks, golf balls, white undershirts, and shaving cream started to disappear. Suddenly he was ready to lay down the law.

Ann: Yeah, I remember when Troy used to come home in the summers. It would take Hannah and me weeks to readjust to having him back in the house. He’s our neat-nick. He’d constantly be cleaning up and it really annoyed us.

Pam: You’re complaining because he tidied up too much?


Ann: I’m not talking about doing a load of dishes or taking out the trash. I swear he was compulsive. I’d get up to answer the phone and when I came back the, book I was reading and the tea I was drinking would be gone…swept away in a cleaning frenzy. It really was irritating.

Pam: Yeah Ross is my cleaner and Kate is my messy one. She leaves what we refer to as ‘Kate droppings’ everywhere. If Troy is your neat one does that mean Hannah’s messy?

Ann: You have no idea! We have a new phenomenon around here with Hannah. I call it the ‘abduction scene’. I’ll come home and there in the family room is a big dent in the middle of the couch surrounded by a whirlwind of random items. It’s as if she was there one moment and in the next she was suddenly plucked up by aliens.

Pam: Oh I know it well. At first I found it pretty frustrating. I’d think, ‘Why the heck can’t this girl pick up after herself?’ But then I learned the value of the clues an abduction scene leaves behind.

Ann: What do you mean?

Pam: Okay…For instance, what was left at Hannah’s last abduction scene?

Ann: Let me think…A half eaten Taco Bell Nacho Bell Grande meal and an empty soft drink cup, the TV remote control, a cordless phone, a bunch of makeup, nail polish, the newspaper’s weekend guide spread out all over, both of her brown purses, and her keys.

Pam: Well that’s easy. It’s as good as a handwritten note…

Dear Mom,
I won’t be home for dinner. There was nothing on TV so I made a few calls and got a hot date. We’re going to the movies. By the way, I borrowed your brown purse.

Love, Hannah

P.S. You’ll know I’m home when I wake you with doorbell.

Ann: Wow! That’s amazing.

Pam: (Sigh) Years of practice.

Mother's Day Glamour Shots?

Pam: I had such a blast at book group last night. I really get a kick out of those ladies. As usual, Amy’s hysterical stories were the hit of the night. You wouldn’t believe what her husband and his brothers did for their mom for Mother’s Day this coming weekend!

Ann: He’s the artist, right?

Pam: Yeah, that’s the one; definitely a free-spirited creative type. He has three brothers and his mother has baby pictures of each of them at one-year-old lined up in the hallway in her house. They’re the typical baby on his belly, pushed up on his arms, naked and grinning on a white bear skin rug.

Ann: Oh, baby tushies…cute.

Pam: Well these guys, now deep in their forties, thought it would be a great idea to recreate those baby pictures for their mom for Mother’s Day!

Ann: They took pictures of themselves lying on their stomachs on a white bear skin rug?

Pam: Naked!

Ann: No way!

Pam: Yes! They got a relative to get their folks out of their house for an evening. They brought along a borrowed white fur rug, spread it on the living room floor, and took turns getting naked and posing in the exact same position as each of their baby pictures. What’s funny is that their bellies were still, relatively speaking, just as big.

Ann: Oh my gosh! I can see it now…big naked, fuzzy men on their bellies on a bear skin rug.

Pam: Amy said that the hardest part for each of them was getting into the same positions as their baby pictures. Their bodies don’t exactly bend that way anymore.

Ann: I think that’s hysterical! I wonder how they turned out.


Pam: I saw them! Amy had them on her digital camera in her purse. She had taken a picture of each of the baby photos on the wall and then had the final shots of each of the brother’s recreations.

Ann: And she showed them to you guys?

Pam: Yeah, she did. Hey, you couldn’t see anything but their derrières. I laughed so hard I had tears in my eyes and an ache in my side. The funny thing was that they kind of looked like aliens. The adult pictures next to the baby photos made the men look like they had super long arms and legs and tiny little heads. It was sort of disconcerting.

Ann: So what are they going to do with the photos? It’s a great joke but they don’t really think she’s going to show them to anyone, do they?

Pam: They had them enlarged, matted, and framed to match the baby photos on the wall. They fully expect her to hang them along side the originals there in the hallway.

Ann: Who knows? Obviously she’s a woman who gave birth to and raised four really crazy guys. She may be the kind of person who might just do it!

Pam: My money’s on yes.