I like to read stories.
Once upon a time there was a mother…
Mothers’s Day? That was in March! Oh, wait, yes, Americans. Hunh.
My Mother is long gone. She was a sweet lady. My sister took her for driving lessons. She was a little bit nervous.
My sister said “Turn right…” and before she had a chance to say “at the end, here,” my mother had turned right, through a chain-link fence and into a small, shallow stream. The car was a write-off. She got lessons from a school after that.
My inheritance from her is my recipe for Irish Stew - the proper recipe, which some of you here have read.
And the saying, when I went off to university:
“Remember son, always keep your pyjamas by the side of the bed in case there’s a fire.”
My Mum, being Irish, sometimes said things a bit differently.
As she helped my brother to reverse his car she shouted, “You’re alright,” to which he perceived the way was clear and he reversed gamely backwards.
What she has meant was, that’s enough, stop there.
You can guess the rest.
My mother taught me how to drive. The first time she told me to brake I did. The microbus stopped, she didn’t. After I cleaned up the windshield glass she informed me brake in that instance meant slow down, not stop. Also told me to always wear clean underwear for the emergancy room staff.
A few years back, my dad used to work at a country store for a side job for some extra money. When I was visiting for vacation, he made my mom mad and hurt her feeling about something(I can’t remember what he said). He drank a bit that night and had to get up early to go to work at the country store. So, My mom and I were drinking too and came up with a plan to mark all over his face with a sharpie while he was a asleep to get back at him. We drew eyes on his eyelids and gave him a big walrus mustache, and we just drew stupid words and doodles all over.
My dad is the type that never looks in the mirror, and we forgot that we did it the next day; we just didn’t think about it. When he came home, he said he had the weirdest day: people either were laughing about something or giving him stange looks. Being in the country, people are a bit too nice to point stuff out like that. We busted out laughing too, and the look of shock on his face made us laugh even harder. He was so pissed when we told him to look in the mirror, but at least he knew not to say hurtful things to her again.
I don’t think I have ever laughed that hard in a night with anybody else. We still get the giggles when we talk about it, and my dad just snorts at us.