Three memorials for mom
(... part two.)
"Tootsie! Goddamit!"
I looked up from the sports page to see what my step-dad was
bellowing about. I soon saw. The family fox terrier emerged from
my mother's sick room with mom's upper plate in its mouth. The
teeth were inverted, so the terrier now looked like a bulldog
that had been in an ugly car accident.
I think that was the defining moment during my stint as my
dying mother's caregiver.
"Do you know how pissed off mom would be if she knew
what was happening?" my brother asked me on the phone.
"Yeah," I said. "But that's the point. She
doesn't know."
It gets worse. For two days, we couldn't find her teeth at
all. Then one day Kacey, our paid professional caregiver, came
out of the room looking ashen.
"Well, I found the teeth. Let's just say they were very
well hidden."
My mind immediately flashed to the fourth grade, when Ricky
Mendoza -- the sixth grader who kept me abreast of my continuing
sexual education -- told me, "And the other thing you should
know. Some pussies have teeth. And they'll clamp down on you."
Let's just say Ricky didn't turn out to be the lying-sack-of-shit
I thought he was.
After we chased down Tootsie and secured the upper plate,
I went to my notebook and continued planning my mom's memorial.
The real one. Several people were involved in the logistics.
My step-dad secured the free venue at the Shriner's Hall, my
sister Kelly handled the invitations, and my friend Rachael lined
up a caterer and provided decorations for the event. Leetha and
Elizabeth also said they would pitch in, but they were 70-something
friends of my parents, and I soon learned their help would be
limited.
For the record, when an elderly lady says, "Is there
anything I can do to help?" that means she's willing to
make a casserole. And when an elderly man says, "Is there
anything I can do to help?" that means he's willing to let
his wife make a casserole.
Also for the record... if I'm still writing this column in
2023, that means I'll be 70 years old. At that point, somebody
should have the decency to shoot me.
I spent three stressful weeks planning the official memorial
for my mom, but planning the second unofficial memorial was a
snap. Three days after my mom's death, I went to WalMart and
bought a sugar bowl that could double as an urn. I used the urn
as my ashtray during the next two weeks, and also burned newspaper
and other flammable substances in the urn. Or sugar bowl, I should
say.
"What are you doing?" Kacey asked.
"I'm working on a long-term project."
"Oh-my-god, you're not going to..."
"Yes, that's exactly what I'm going to do. So be a good
girl and go look for teeth or something."
Once the sugar bowl was filled with enough ashes for my deviant
purposes, I made phone calls to Alan, Michele, Dennis, Adrienne,
Eddie and all the other regulars from Jasper O'Farrell's, a pub
in Sebastopol.
"I'm coming in Wednesday night. I want you to meet me
at eight o'clock at Jasper's at the back patio."
My buddy, Big Billy D., worked as a bartender at Jasper's
on Wednesday nights and most other nights at that. For sentimental
reasons, I always worked my practical jokes on Billy, even though
he could now see them coming from as far off as Texas. That said,
he was hopelessly helpless to my affronts.
I arrived at Jasper's at 8 p.m. Everyone showed up on time
except for Michele, but that was my fault. I told her to come
between eight and eight-thirty. Who knew I would be on time?
At 8:20, I told Billy that I wanted to talk to him outside
on the patio in 15 minutes.
"I'll be busy then," he said. "Can we do this
in the next five minutes?"
Shit, damn, fuck. Too early. But I had to go along with him
or he'd get suspicious.
I went out to the parking lot and grabbed the sugar bowl from
my car. The bowl was placed inside a bag that read, "Daniel's
Chapel of the Roses" to ensure the look of authencity. I
had secured the bag three weeks ago when I picked up my mom's
ashes at Daniel's. For two days, I kept the ashes in the trunk
of my car, hoping a cop would stop me.
"So... do you know why I pulled you over?"
"Because of the dead body in the trunk?"
Anyway, I grabbed the sack, took it to the back patio of Jasper's
and set it on the table, as my friends continued to annoy me.
"What's up? What's going on? Why did you call us here?"
"Does anybody need a beer?" I asked. "Maybe
I just called you here to buy you a fuckin' beer."
Soon, Billy emerged from the back door and joined us on the
patio. The moment had arrived, and even though Michele was late
(and I really wanted her to see this) I knew it was the right
time to proceed.
"Bill," I started, as I solemnly took the sugar
bowl out of the Daniel's Chapel of the Roses sack. "I just
got my mother's ashes today and I want you to be the first to
hold them."
When Bill reached out to grab my mother's phony urn, I dropped
the sugar bowl to the ground. Incredibly, it didn't shatter,
but the ashes scattered everywhere. I checked Bill's eyes and
saw the stunned deer-in-the-headlights look I had hoped to see.
About three seconds later, he caught on.
"You fucker. I'm not buying this."
I only got Bill for a moment or two, but believe me, I live
for the fuckin' moment. I laughed my ass off, as did all of the
people at the table when they caught on. Well, everyone except
Alan.
"You dropped your mother's ashes? That's so wrong."
"Hey. They weren't really her ashes. They're fuckin'
Marlboro ashes."
"Still, the disrespect is so egregiously untenable,"
Alan said.
"I'll tell you what's untenable. When I went to get my
mom's ashes from Daniel's Chapel of the Roses, before the funeral
director put the urn in the bag he asked, 'Paper or plastic?'
Now that's untenable."
Alan took a long drag from his cigarette. "You are so
going to burn in hell."
Finally, Michele showed up.
"Did I miss anything?"
* * *
SUBSCRIPTIONS: If
you've recently subscribed, but you haven't received an e-mail,
that means you got lost between the cracks. Nothing personal.
Just e-mail me again.
* * *
STANDARD DISCLAIMER:
This column aims to be funny. If you can read anything else into
it, you're on your own.
Link(s) Of The Week
|