Do you want to slap my face?

This is a non-fiction narrative that I did take a little bit of poetic license with.

 

Do You Want To Slap My Face?

 

            Anyone who has ever raised a child can tell you that parenthood is not an easy task. It is an all or nothing full contact sport that makes hockey look like ballet. In addition to your native language, you must also be fluent in whine, gibberish, and sarcasm. There are no sick days. There are no vacation days unless you have a babysitter or a grandparent who lives nearby. You pull more all nighters than college only instead of textbooks; it's usually with a sick kid. You have heart-sickening experiences that would scare Stephen King usually about the first time you have to take one of your kids for stitches. You have to clean messes that even baptism and prayer couldn't cleanse. You are supposed to know where everything is, and it is assumed that you have psychic abilities.  You have more blame on your shoulders than even the President has; everything is your fault, good or bad, and even though you give it your best shot you're pretty sure they're going to need therapy because of you. Even the best of parents have laid in bed crying because of parental guilt.

            I learned this as a parent reflecting on my mom, thinking back on my own childhood. I have always revered my mom as something between a superhero and a goddess, but there were a few times in my childhood where I saw my mom crack. The first time that I can recall where I saw it happen, we were only 6 months into a new life in a new town. We still had a painful divorce as a fresh scar on our hearts, and life had poured on us an extremely trying day: a tough principal interaction, parent teacher conferences, topped off by a few unkind words spoken by a man who could not possibly understand. In that moment, raising kids was enough to break the strongest woman in the world.  Though we have since met that day with humor, I have often revisited that day in my mind. 

            You need to understand, that my mom was a single mom of four children. Admittedly, there are different kinds of single moms, caused by different circumstances, so allow me to clarify. My mom was not an “out of wedlock different baby daddy per kid” popping kids out to collect welfare single mom that plagued the '80's, and she wasn't widowed suddenly with warm fuzzy memories of a spouse who passed on.  She was one who decided that somethings shouldn't have to be tolerated.  After being with the same man for nearly twenty years, putting him through law school, enduring all of the highs and lows that come with standing by someone for that long, establishing a home and a family, I guess he got bored. In looking for a new hobby, he discovered booze, drugs and a bar fly that I was sure was the Wicked Witch's little sister named Marcy. At the time, I was sure she was at fault for all of our problems. Years later I got to know my dad. It's amazing how much perspective that gave me. In any case, my mom decided to leave it all behind. After all, there are worse things in this life than being alone.

            True to her coping style, she whisked her little family off the sleepy little town at the end of the Cascades and at the very beginning of the Sierra Nevadas.  A town named after Issac Roop's daughter, to Susanville. The beautiful safe wonderful little town bordered on one side by the Indian Reservation. The town with the L on the hill, where the mill blew the whistle at noon every day, and a kid could ride a bike down the street with very little care. This town still exists in the memories of my yesteryears.

            Our family consisted of my mom, my sister, my brothers Tommy and Sean, and me. It's important that you understand the family dynamics. My mom was a perfect even blend of Native American and Irish. She had porcelain skin kissed with freckles, and her body was framed with dark hair that hung to her waist. She had hazel eyes that acted like a mood-ring for her soul--grey when she didn't feel well, emerald green when she was happy, and dark when she was angry. My mom was the picture of beauty, but not what the media tells you is beautiful. She was height weight proportionate, strong by her very nature, both physically and emotionally,  and her very nature was a contradiction. She could be selfish and selfless, she could be stoic and emotional, she could be fierce or warm and she could be cold and loving.

            My sister Bobbie was a lot more like my mom than she cared to admit. She was everybit as beautiful but a bit taller and darker complected.  For the most part, she was the picture of sweetness, but she was angry. Even though she was in the height of her teenage rebellion, she had angst that was being feuled by things deeper than your average teenager. She resented my mom. She didn't like being the built in babysitter, she didn't understand why mom didn't work things out with dad, and she especially didn't understand why mom had made her move and leave her friends behind to start her junior year of  high school in a brand new town 3 hours away from her home.

            My brothers, Tommy and Sean, oftentimes acted as one entity. They were 18 months apart, and even though they had their differences, people often mistook them for twins. They both had coffee brown hair; they both had the round face; they both had the pale skin. However, Tommy was taller than Sean and on the chubby side. He acted as a bully most the time. Sean, was leaner and a fire bug, who was constantly trying to be like or out do Tommy. They were constantly in trouble. They put professional criminals to shame with some of their antics. I am convinced that in addition to improving on old time classics, they invented new ways of getting into trouble. Everyone knew they were rotten, except mom. Every once in a while they'd get caught, and mom would lower the boom, but the stuff they got away with boggles the mind. The amazing thing is these two hoodlums grew up to be lawyers. Either mom did something right, or it proves that all lawyers are crooks deep down. I'll let you make your own interpretation.

             Then there was me. I was the baby.  I was the palest skin, and the only one with red hair. I was my brothers' favorite squeaky toy, my sister's least favorite friday night anchor and the family tattle tale. I took my reporting duties very seriously. Admittedly it was fun to see the other kids get into trouble. Except that for some reason, it always seemed to backfire when I tattled on Tommy and Sean. Probably because they were evil geniuses.

            I was in kindergarten, but I was the smartest, sweetest, coolest “Five and a half” year old you ever met, as least as far as I can remember. I'm sure that my memory is 100% unbiased and totally accurate. MTV was my favorite channel; I knew who Cyndi Lauper was; I wore leg warmers; I had been cruising;I had seen an R-rated movie with my sister when my Mom wasn't home; and I was probably the youngest kid with big hair in 1984. This may have been fueled by the fact that my sister had a love affair with her curling iron and Aqua Net, and I wanted to be just like her. A lot of children are in a hurry to grow up, but I so emulated my sister that I thought of myself as a “mini-teen” or “5 going on 30” Precocious might be a good word to use in describing me.

            I guess, it's kind of pointless to say, that my mom's hands were full, and that was before you added the job as the editorial secretary at the Lassen Advocate, (whatever that was) or the classes at Lassen Community College to work towards her AA.(Adults do school too?) Add a furry, destruction crew on legs, who had more tongue and tail than brains that the kids brought home and named Rex, and you have the stuff that sitcoms and therapy sessions are made of.

            My mom even to this day is the very picture of amazing.  There was nothing she couldn't fix, nothing she couldn't cook, nothing she couldn't sew, nothing she couldn't handle. The divorce still fresh was more painful because this was something she should be able to fix, too.  But even still, she seemed to have it all in stride: schedules and menus were kept, the house was immaculately clean, to the point that the woman even mated our socks, she had her rules. Heaven help you if you didn't follow them. Unless you were Tommy or Sean. Those guys got away with EVERYTHING!

            My mom drove a boat of a worn out late '70's somewhere between puke and avocado green station-wagon that chewed front tires and brakes like a teenager with a wad of bubblegum. In it's day, it was fully loaded, with power steering, door locks, and windows, complete with an AM/FM stereo and an 8 track player. It's shinny chrome was flaking off and the look was complete with the scratched wood paneling on the side. No '70's station-wagon experience would be complete without the sticky vinyl seats and the ever so compact kick the crap out of your sibling's shins pop up seating accommodations in the very back. The front two passenger windows and windshield were clean, but everything from the middle seat back was smudged and showed the fingerprints of tiny humans. It had lost the new car smell a few years earlier, and courtesy of children was replaced with something resembling mold and stale Cheerios, with the slightest hint of melted crayon. It was probably better if you didn't know what the stain on the carpet or the sticky substance on the door handle on the back passenger inside door was for that matter.

            Long before the days of the National Highway Safety Board and liberal law makers telling parents how to raise their kids, seat belts and car seats were unnecessary. If mom had to slam on the brakes in a hurry, her lightning fast super human mom reflexes would extended the arm brace out to keep you from flying through the window. It must have worked--I'm in my mid thirties, we did this and other dangerous things like drink out of garden hoses, play cops and robbers, and walk on the top of monkey bars. I'm still alive to tell the tale.

            Our afternoon had been filled with normal family stuff, that is, if anything related to my family could ever be called normal. My mom had left work early so she could attended a meeting with the biggest principal on the whole planet regarding one of her derelict kids though I can't recall who or why. (It must have been Tommy and Sean). David Burrial was a 16' tall Native American man with a deep voice. He was about 12' wide with hands the size of manhole covers, and even though he never raised his voice to me, I was sure that if you made him mad he may have killed you. I did not understand why Tommy and Sean would spend so much time in his office. I would repent of the smallest of sin if I ever got sent in there. Eventually I did, in the 4^th grade, but in Kindergarten, no way! That was worse than death! Mrs. McQueen was scary enough. My mom has since said he was not that big at all and a complete teddy bear. I'm still not so sure.

             This meeting was followed by parent-teacher conference time at McKinley Elementary where she got to hear how her kids were smart, but just didn't behave or apply themselves. I distinctly  remember Mrs. McQueen telling my mom that I must learn by osmosis because I did no work didn't seem to pay attention, but always seemed to have the right answer. I still to this day fail to see what the problem with that was. If only I could harness that ability today. I would use my text books as pillows and life would be absolute bliss.

            If you have kids, you know that these kind of school interactions can be exhausting as is, and this afternoon, it was followed by a trip to the grocery store.  Not a simple run in and get a few things, but one where my mom was trying to shop, while Bobbie proceeded to plead her case  about why she should be allowed to get a second and third ear piercing, where those boys proceeded to tease and chase each other, and any other kid within arms reach through the aisles, knocking over displays, (Hello, What can I say, it was Tommy and Sean!) and I asked for every cereal that had a cartoon character on it.  However my Mom had the focus of a martial arts expert.She intently studied her list, though hind sight tells me she was probably embarrassed by how her kids were acting and just trying to figure out what she needed the most so she could get her three ring circus out of the store as quickly as possible.  The store manager finally came over and with the compassion of a bouncer hissed, “Mam, if you don't get your kids under control, I'm liable to spank them myself.” My mom, always the business-like one, had that detached and hard to read look on her face. Looking back, I know that must have hurt, and it makes sense that we quickly paid for what we had, leaving a good portion of the list behind and left. My mom obviously planned to do it another day without children in tow.

            On the way home, we bounced loose under the influence of the high octane sugary treats that we had traded for healthy items and greedily ingested somewhere during our school day. Interesting fact:in the '80's there were kids actually dumb enough to trade sugary snacks like candy and Ho Ho's for healthy boring snacks like apples and carrot sticks. These were my best friends in the whole wide world. Anyway, back inside the station-wagon, KSUE let Kenny Rogers serenade us with “Lucille” as my mom steered us towards home, making the left on Grand Ave. Then, somewhere on North around Memorial Park, my sister and brother Tommy, got into a yelling match, that soon escalated into a slapping match. About the time we turned right onto North Roop, I was raiding the grocery bags looking for a snack even though I was told repeatedly to stop. As we approached Cherry Terrace, just a few miles from home, my brother Sean who was always being the family goofball, was pushing buttons literally on the radio, and figuratively by mouthing off, and causing problems when he successfully found my mom's very last surviving frayed nerve.

            She slammed on her brakes, she turned to face my brothers, my sister and me. Steam rolled out of her ears and nostrils. That fierceness present, her face turned red, then purple, then her face turned back to red again.  She looked like something straight out of a Looney Toons cartoon, except I don't recall hearing “The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down” play. I have very rarely seen my mother that angry and she was going to lay down the law.  She meant to reprimand us all. She intended to gain control. She was going to end the nonsense and get us back on track. We had a schedule to keep! But unfortunately, when the adults, especially the women of my family get extremely frustrated, the words come out jumbled, and what tumbled out of her mouth was the exact opposite of helpful. It was actually more like an atom bomb effect.

             With her dark eyes piercing, and the projection envied by opera singers worldwide at the very top of her lung capacity in a voice that could be heard across 3 counties my mother yelled, “DAMN IT!YOU KIDS! DO YOU WANT TO SLAP MY FACE?” Without missing a beat, with the stylings of Bugs Bunny successfully tributed in perfect unison that rivaled the professional chorus lines of Broadway, we sang back, “YES!!!!!!” and exploded into laughter.

            My mother buried her head into the steering wheel, deflated like a freshly popped balloon.  After a moment or two of silence, something choked out between laughter and crying that correlated with her shoulders moving up and down. A few more minutes passed, and my mother, silently, straightened up, wiped her face with her hands, and drove us home as if nothing had happened. She made dinner, then put us to bed, aloof and hardly saying a word.

            Over the years, in other times of exasperation, my mother has added other phrases to her backwards repertoire, such as, “Well if the floo s***s!” and “I am so Grounded!” For years, we have quoted them back and mocked her. My mother, has always taken it with good humor, and even laughed at herself. But karma is real my friends, and I am here to testify to you that my children have served it with a vengeance on me. Though I have had many high and low points in raising my children, I too have had those moments where I silently pleaded with God to give me strength to make it through the day. Let's just say, I have an understanding of why some animal species eat their young. Sea turtles who leave before their offspring hatch may be on to something, but I digress. Just like my mother before me, in moments following long, hard days, when I have slipped off the edge of my proverbial cliff, I have uttered things that don't even make sense. I could fill a book with dumb things like, “Jesus doesn't want to see your penis”, “Don't throw a Cow!” and  “I'm not as think as you dumb I am.” In kind, my kids do not let me live it down. All I can do is shake my head and apologize to my mother for being such a brat.

            As my oldest daughter approaches 18, when my children are making me crazy, it warms the very cockles of my heart when I think about the fact that their times are coming. I take great solace that someday they will all be parents. If Karma and genetics ring true, they too, will say crazy and backwards things when they are ready to ring their precious children's tiny necks like a common scene with Homer and Bart. In those moments when they say backwards things, my  grandchildren will laugh and mock and tease them. They will never live it down. Someday, they may even call me, repentant and say, “Mama, I'm so sorry!” or “Mama, do you know what my child just pulled?” I will simply laugh hysterically as Karma rolls on to the next generation. 

Author's Note

I turned this in for a Creative Writing class I was taking and received an A.