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.
"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/urn
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."
"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?"
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STANDARD DISCLAIMER: This column aims to be funny. If you can read anything
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