Mother's Day Story

Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there reading this. I know that some of you had your hands full getting your sons raised without giving in to filicide (I had to look this one up).  Not my own dear mother, of course.  I was a very low maintenance child, never any trouble to anyone, always acting with decorum, obedience, and deportment.

Stop laughing, you bums.

As I reminisce about my childhood, misspent and otherwise, I'm reminded of an event in kindergarten which I was a witness to.


We had a little five year old snot in our neighborhood that had issues.  You know, issues?  Back then my mother said that there was something wrong with him, and she was right.  There was.

One fine day in kindergarten class when we were supposed to be napping in preparation for our next scheduled activity, the little snot in question was taking his turn in the boy's room.  Seeing a wet paper towel in the waste basket, he wondered if it would actually burn or not, and, well, it did.

The fire alarm was sounded.  We all sought our partners and filed obediently outside.  This sure beat nap time with a rubber hose, but it wasn't until I found out through the grape vine about what happened that I showed any curiosity.

Why would anyone do that?

Not much happened by way of official punishment.  The school principal had a parent(s)-teacher conference, the snot was instructed not to do that again, and that was about it.

Later on down the road, the very same snot came close to burning down someone's garage, and a suitable punishment was devised and administered.  The unwanted behavior involving matches and flammable materials abruptly stopped.  Well, what do you know about that?

The answer to the obvious question is an emphatic No, this wasn't me. Yes, it's a true story, or true enough for this blog and the Internet - names have been changed to protect the author, et cetera.  Still, the thrust of the story is true.

The snot's mother was a nice enough lady, but she was known to have a temper.  I wonder why that was?

Well, time passes, and happy hour is starting in a few minutes, so I'll get on with the real story.

On Mother's Day back in 2003 or so, I was living in Jacksonville, FL.  I rented a room from a lady I'd met out dancing, and we got along pretty well together.  I was prompt with my rent payment and didn't do too many funny things around the house.

On that particular holiday my land lady and two of her friends, all mothers, were at the house and their kids were off doing other things.  I decided this wasn't quite right, and so resolved to give them a small celebration.

I cooked a full dinner, including hors d'oeuvres and desert.  I waited on them.  When desert was over, all three insisted on doing the dishes, but I was having none of it.

"How often have all of you fixed dinner, then washed the dishes afterwards?"

Naturally, all three had done this numerous times.  Too often to actually count or guess at.

I did the dishes, cleaned the kitchen, and actually left the place in better shape than it was when I started.

The women loved it.

The part I'm proud of is doing the dishes.  That's the real dining experience - not having to cook and not having to clean up.