Momma Drama

My mother has this knack for bad things happening to her constantly. Ever see that Flintstones spin-off cartoon from the early seventies, The Pebbles And Bamm-Bamm Show ? My mother is Schleprock. For those of you that know nothing of the show, Schleprock was an all doom & gloom character that bad things continually happen to over and over. His favorite line on the show was, “Woe is me” and right he was.

*If there’s a gopher hole in the yard, my mother will step in it and break her ankle.

*If there’s a yellow-jacket nest in the yard, my mother will walk over it and get stung 58 times.

*If my mother eats out, they always get her order wrong of she finds a hair in her food.

*My mother is the only person I know that can borrow a car (mine) and total it pulling out of the driveway 5 minutes later.

*The knife always slips when momma slices a ham and takes a chuck or two out of her fingers.

*My mother is the only person I know that sat her oven mitt on fire when she was taking a pan of cornbread out of the oven and burnt down the entire kitchen. If you look closely you can see the scorch marks inside the range hood.

*My mom has had a “splitting headache” since 1971.

I could go on and on, but I won’t. I love my mom something fierce but she does tend to depress me when she's in one of her moods. When I’m around her I’m constantly trying to cheer her up and point out the good things in her life and folks, it wears me da fuck out. Today was my day off. God, I was sleeping so good too, until…

Last night all over North Carolina we had torrential downpours (child, it rained). I mean, it certainly does rain here in winter but it’s usually a soft, pattering rain. The kind of rain we had last night was the type you get during hurricane season when a tropical storm passes through. Like I said, I was sleeping so good around 8:30 and suddenly, BAM ! There was my mom in my bedroom, shaking me and telling me that there was a "problem".

Like many people with parents that are starting to become elderly, I’d giving my mom a key to my place years ago in case of an emergency and well, here she was in my face (good thing I wasn’t throwing my legs to Jesus with some redneck boy on top of me pumping away).

It seems that because my mother had decided to park her cars on the lawn, instead of the driveway, both of them were mired up in mud (almost to the bumpers) and completely stuck because of the ground still being so sopping-wet from last night’s rain. My mother had walked the two miles to my house instead of just simply picking up the phone and calling me. That's all I need, momma falling in a ditch and breaking her hip in the middle of nowhere, ya'll ! One of the problems of living in such a small town is that everybody and their brother will stop me in the grocery store and say stuff like, "I saw yo momma walkin' beside the road da other day, is everything alright ?" And you just know they're thinking it's somehow my fault...

I make her leave the room and I dress quickly so we can head back to her house. The cars are indeed stuck fast. I do all the tricks you’re supposed to do to get a car unstuck (placing planks under the wheels & filling the hole with rocks and gravel so the wheels can get traction) but nothing works and the spinning of the wheels just seems to dig the cars in deeper. By this time, I’m covered in mud head-to-toe, my Kenneth Coles are ruined and I haven’t had my coffee yet. I’m started to get grouchy and over the whole damn thing, fast.

“You’re going to have to call a wrecker. Mother.”

“I don’t have the money…”

“Well, that the only way these cars are coming out of this mud.”

“Oh God, why does everything happen to me? I live right, I go to church, and I’m just a poor old widow woman…”

I roll my eyes and sigh loudly, “I’m calling a wrecker truck.”

“I CAN’T afford it.” She says again and stomps her foot, “You’re the man of the family, can’t you DO something?”

God, I so regret leaving DC sometimes. “Momma, I’ve done all I can do. Unless you have a magic wand stashed somewhere or have a genie in a bottle somewhere that owes you a favor, I’m calling Dixie Towing!”

The tow truck driver’s eyes got real big when he saw the muddy mess and the cars in my mom’s yard, but he remained professional and soon had both cars out of the mire in no time. It costs $50.00, I gladly paid it just so I could get into some clean clothes and get back home to my coffee maker. Ask anyone that knows me, you’re pushing your luck if you aggravate me pre-coffee.

Ya’ll be good and count to 10 when your momma gets on your nerves (I know I had to this morning).