It's like this EVERY DAY.

Mom: I want to go get my haircut before we leave for [grandson's] graduation.

Me: Haircut? You just got your haircut two weeks ago. It hasn't really grown much.

Mom: Not a haircut. I meant that I want to have it styled so it looks nice for the graduation.

Me: Ok. But you do know that you will be on the road for at least two days so your hair won't look any different than it does today by the time you get to the graduation.

Mom: Oh. Nevermind then.

10 days later. After Mom sends in her reservation for her class reunion to be held in a month.

Me: How about we make an appointment for the morning of your reunion to get your hair done.

Mom: I don't need a haircut.

Me: I didn't say "hair CUT", I said "Hair DONE." Have it fixed to look nice for the reunion.

Mom: I don't care what my hair looks like.

Me: But.... three weeks ago.... for the graduation... You had wanted to get your hair done.

Mom: My hair looks nice the way it is.

Me: Nevermind.

Reason #519 why I won't object when they come to take me away

Me: Mom, why do you keep flipping the light switch off by the coffee pot.

Mom: To turn off that outside light.

Me: That outside light is on a sensor. It automatically turns off in the daylight.

Mom: Well! It turns off when I flip the switch.

Treat Your Mother Right

Happy Mother's Day!

Observations about some men and their mothers

Never marry a man who hates his mother, because he'll end up hating you.
~ Jill Bennett

Men are what their mothers made them.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Unhappy is the man for whom his own mother has not made all other mothers venerable.
~ Richter

It takes a woman twenty years to make a man of her son, and another woman twenty minutes to make a fool of him.
~ Helen Rowland

Children are the sum of what mothers contribute to their lives.
~ Unknown

No man succeeds without a good woman behind him. Wife or mother, if it is both, he is twice blessed indeed.
~ Harold Macmillan

If you could choose your parents,... we would rather have a mother who felt a sense of guilt—at any rate who felt responsible, and felt that if things went wrong it was probably her fault—we’d rather have that than a mother who immediately turned to an outside thing to explain everything, and said it was due to the thunderstorm last night or some quite outside phenomenon and didn’t take responsibility for anything.
~ D.W. Winnicott

Reason #179 as to why I quickly left the room.

Me: Mom! That show you watch is coming on right now. It's on channel six.

Mom: (picking up the remote) What numbers do I push? Zero, Eight?

If it's not one thing, it's your mother.

I found an index card on the kitchen table on which I had previously written some information about a special cross that I had purchased as a gift for my mother. I had placed the card and cross in a cardboard box. I then put the box in a drawer in the bedroom dresser.

Picture a box only slightly smaller than a tissue box. Hold your hands that far apart. You get the general idea of the size of the box now, right?

Me: Mom, this card was in a box in the dresser. Why did you take it out?

Mom: I didn't take it out. There wasn't a box in the dresser. The card was just in the drawer.

Me: No, the card was in a box. I put it there myself. I put the box in the dresser drawer.

Mom: There wasn't a box in the drawer.

Me: Yes. There was. It was a brown cardboard box. The box was this (spreading my hands apart the approximate length of a tissue box) big.

Mom: There wasn't a box in there. I cleaned out the dresser today.

Me: Yes, there was a box in the dresser. I put it in there myself some time ago. It was still there the last time I checked - last week.

Mom: I didn't see a box and didn't take that card out of anything. It was just in the drawer.

Me: The card was in the box. I put it in there. The box contained a cross. I put it in the drawer. It was to be your Easter present. I wrote "Happy Easter Momma" on the box. It was a brown cardboard box. Only slightly smaller than a kleenex box (again, showing her with my hands, the approximate size of the box).

Mom: It was not in there. There never was a box in there.

(This conversation was repeated about 6 times, all the while searching through the drawers as my mother continually insisted that there was never anything like that in the dresser.)

Me: (very exasperated - finally giving up) Well, when you do find it. That was to be your Easter gift. Happy Easter.

Mom: It will show up with the other thing I can't find.

Me: (deciding to give it one last try - I'm hard headed. I admit it.) The box contained a cross on a little stand (This may have been the most important piece of info. Had I said that earlier I could have saved myself a headache). It was about this (holding my fingers about 6 inches apart) big.

Mom: OH. I found that. I put that cross on the shelf.

Me: WHAT!?! (seeing the cross high on the bookshelf) THAT'S IT!!!! Where did you find that cross?

Mom: In the dresser.

Me: Isn't that what I said? A cross in a brown cardboard box in a drawer in the dresser.

Mom: You said a "box with a cross in it." I thought you meant a little cross on a chain that you would wear around your neck.

Me: So where's the box?

Mom: There was no box.

Me: (sighing) Happy Easter.