You Kiss Your Mother With That Mouth?

After my Mom and Step-dad divorced and our family home was sold, my Mom found a townhouse for us. We spent one hot, summer Saturday moving all of our belongings across town into our new place. It was a scary time, a new neighborhood and I was about to start middle school. But I was so exhausted that I fell into bed that night and I did not move once in my sleep.

At 8am on Sunday morning, I woke up to something I have never heard before. A woman screaming obscenities, with a thick Boston accent, at the top of her lungs at her entire family. "What the fuck do you think this is, a fucking hotel? Get your lazy asses out of bed and walk the fucking dogs! Then clean your God damned rooms." I looked out my bedroom window and I saw a platinum blond woman in rollers and a bright yellow housecoat yelling at two kids. The girl, who looked about my age, got both of the dogs and took them out for a walk. The boy who looked like he was in high school, just sat at the table and smirked while the woman yelled at him. Then a man came into their kitchen and said something to the woman. She didn't like what he said because she started whacking him on the head with her fists and yelling more foul language.

This family was making so much racket, that my mother woke up and came into my room. We both were stunned by the show going on across our driveway. We peered through my curtains, watching and listening as this woman screamed at her family. It was quite a show. I can honestly say that I learned how to properly use every single swear word (except the often maligned c-word) that morning. I owe my filthy vocabulary to that woman. Over the years, that woman who I lovingly called Mizz Betty became a second mother to me and her daughter became one of my best friends.

Mizz Betty passed away November 11, 2002. I fucking miss her.

My Third Step On The Slippery Slope

Step One

Step Two

From birth until age 10, I wasn't exposed to a lot of cursing in my home. My mom didn't curse, my stepfather didn't curse and aside from that one time at Christmas, I didn't curse. Then my parents split up. My mom had caught my stepfather cheating on her. Something in her changed from the mother I was familiar with, she became a disco dancing, smoking, wild woman.

One night, we came home to find that my stepfather had broken into the house and taken half of everything. Half of the food. Half of the linens. Half of the furniture. Half of the tools. Half of the Christmas decorations. If it could be divided into two, he took half of it, save for my belongings. My mom was livid. She got on the phone and started yelling at him. After about 10 minutes of screaming she yelled, "YOU PRICK!" and hung up.

I didn't think anything of it. So a few days later when some stinky boy stole our ball during a two-square game, I hollered, "You prick!" as I ran after him. My teacher was on yard duty that day and he called me over immediately.

Mr. K: "Michele, What did you call him?"

Me: "A prick?"

Mr. K: "Do you know what that means?"

Me: "It's like a poke with a needle and you can call someone that when they steal stuff."

Mr. K: "Where did you hear that?"

Me: "My mom called my Dad that the other night when he stole her bed."

Mr.K: "Well, that is a grown up word. I don't want you using that anymore, ok?. I am going to call your mom today."

Me: " Ok."

Six months later, my life changed dramatically. And so did my vocabulary.

Why We Are Better Talking In The Abstract

When I was little and asked the question that all parents dread, "Where do babies come from?” My mom told me "A boy gives a girl a seed and it grows in her tummy into a baby." That Christmas, I refused to kiss any of my male relatives for fear that one of them would burp a baby seed into my mouth and impregnate me.

A few years later, I saw my dog, Poco, giving the neighbor's dog, Pepper, a 'piggyback ride'. A few months later, Pepper had puppies and my Mom told me it was because of the piggyback ride. So, of course, I refused to give or receive piggyback rides after that.

To avoid another litter of puppies, my mom took Poco to the vet to have him neutered. She explained to me the vet was going to 'cut his balls off' so he won't make babies anymore. She called it 'getting him fixed'. I didn't question her and she didn't offer any more information, end of discussion.

Around that same time, my mom started experiencing 'womanly problems'. She went to see her 'woman doctor' and he told her she needed to have a hysterectomy. About a week before my mom went into the hospital, my mom sat me down and said, "You know Mommy has been having womanly problems, right?" I nodded. "Well, the doctor wants to remove the parts that are giving me problems so I will feel better. But that means I won't have my period anymore and I won't be able to have babies. Do you understand?" I said, "Oh, you are getting fixed liked Poco!"

I think since the first three attempts at talking to me about the birds and the bees had not turned out they way she expected, my mom just gave up. We never talked about sex in anything other than the abstract for the next 30 years.

I Had No Idea What I Was Going To Write About

So I called my mom. She is usually good for a post or two or three. But I think she had a few too many vodka tonics in her and the conversation was slurred and was mostly about her dogs and what she bought on her latest trip to Costco.

As she rambled on and on about Splenda, meatloaf and the Jack Russel's dingleberrys, I checked my email, cruised around Facebook and took pictures of my dogs sleeping on the bed. She figured out I wasn't really paying attention, so she started asking me questions.

Mom: "I have two bags of Splenda do you want one of them?"

Me: "Sure. I'll take one of them."

Mom: "I have a bunch of coupons you might want."

Me: "Like what"

Mom:” I have one for that 'Yours and Mine' stuff."

Me: "What?"

Mom: "You know, the stuff you use if you want to get intimate. You use it-"

Me: "STOP! Just stop talking. We are done. I am not talking to you about this. I am done. Good night Mom."

And I hung up. She had never given me "the talk" when I was younger. I certainly wasn't going to have it with her when I was 40 and married.

SHEESH.

Whore Underwear

When I was in elementary school, I wanted a blue satin jacket with a picture of Sean Cassidy on the back. My mom said no and told me satin jackets were worn by cheap women. As I approached the middle school years, I wanted to dress up for Halloween like naughty Sandy from the movie, Grease. My mom said no once again, saying that only trashy women wore satin pants and red shoes. When I was a teenager, my mother would never let me wear red bras or panties. She told me only WHORES wore red undergarments.

A couple of years ago, I went to New York with a friend of mine and we went to this wonderful store called Intimacy for professional bra fittings. One of the bras I ended up buying was red. When we left the store, I immediately called my mother and yelled into the phone, in the middle of Park Avenue, "I BOUGHT A WHORE BRA! IT'S RED AND I AM WEARING IT RIGHT NOW!"

Mother Daughter Profanity.

Thursday my mom came up to visit me. She helped me with some straightening up so when the girl comes to clean my house, she can actually clean. I kept reminding her that she did not need to give the house "The German Scrub-down", merely help me get stuff out of the way for the cleaning lady. She wouldn't listen. This is the conversation we had in my kitchen:

Me: Old woman, if you don't stop sweeping the floor I am going to kick your ass.

Her: Oh yeah? You with your gimpy neck and arm? How are you going to kick my ass?

Me: You are old, you have a pain in your ass from your sciatica, only one eye, a torn rotator cuff and two swollen feet. I have still have one good arm, two eyes and two good feet. It won't be a fair fight and I'll kick your ass. So quit sweeping the fucking floor!

Her: Shut the fuck up you ungrateful child!

Me: Now Joan, be nice to me. I am the only child. Not only will I pick the nursing home you'll get put into, I will also be writing your obituary. You've seen what can happen with that!

Then we both starting laughing so hard, I started to cry and she peed her pants. In my kitchen. We had to mop the floor anyway.