Kids have such an effective way of making their mothers insane, countries with ill intent should harness it. What I’d like to know is how they learn and apply it so quickly. Sure, I could do research, delve deep, offer examples – but this ain’t a doctoral thesis. I’m just a cartoonist riffing here.
In my case, my mother would actually chew her own fist in fury like a tiny, brunette Colonel Klink, the better not to assault me with a metal spatula.
Here’s the story: Mom was forever convinced that my sibling was unknowingly (deliberately?) harboring cancerous tumors, and when he was on break from college, she made it a habit of feeling around his armpits and neck, checking for lumps. In fairness, we knew a lot of kids who had Hodgkins Lymphoma – some who died – and it scared the living shit out of her. So, one day, as a joke, Sibling taped a baseball under one of his pits before he came down for breakfast. Mom, doing her cancer inspection, nearly had a heart attack. Seconds later he was laughing like a maniac, and she picked up the nearest tool – a spatula - with which to vent her fury. The only thing that saved him from a clout on the forehead was a kitchen chandelier and her Hobbit-like reach. He giggled Puckishly out of the house, leaving her in a volcanic rage.
Of course, he was her favorite, so all was forgiven when he returned; she laughed at it and the worries about cancer ended – well, the cancer checkpoints did, anyway.
Me? Yeah, I don’t want to make my mom into a caricature – she was really splendid and I adored her, but we all look nuts to our kids. Still, here’s one that I’ll always remember semi-fondly (and I think she’d laugh, too):
It was mid-afternoon and I was folding clothes whilst watching Merv Griffin or Mike Douglas or one of those leering fat TV hosts from the 70s. I origamied everyone’s pants and shirts and sweaters, but, at age 14, I was quite simply grossed out by underwear – anyones (and why on earth do you need to fold it?). So I simply left the offending fabric in piles and said “done!”. Mom, after I continued to object to touching the equivalent of “Kramer’s boys”, went nearly Full Spatula. It’s important to remember that she was an elementary school teacher covering five schools, and just half an hour later, had to take me to my bi-weekly dance class which she would sit through making notes for my routines, then come home and put dinner on the table after a day of teaching little kids not to throw tempera and eat glue. Yay, Feminism!
I was wearing my leotard and tap shoes when Mom came at me like a mad Sicilian (just a nod to The Princess Bride. Don’t dox me and light a protest fire in my driveway). I ran out of the house and absconded to my buddy’s (the same place I stowed my forbidden jeans*). SANCTUARY!
The funny thing, though, is that we were so responsible about our duties back then – even when furious. My mom knew I’d be at my friend’s place. She picked me up, I came out, we drove to my dance class, and that was that. Crisis wasn’t averted because crisis was never imagined. Just regular old life.
*See my Denimism Substack