Call Your Mom

I called my mother the other day, just to say hi, nothing more. She’s almost 90 and by herself, so I try to check in as often as I can.

“Hello?”

“Hi Mom, how’s it going?”

“Well, well, well. Hello stranger, do I know you? Hold on, I’ll turn off the TV. Oh Jesus, Bob Barker fell on his head again. So what’s going on?”

“Oh, just another exciting Saturday night. I’m mopping the floor. I’m using Pine-Sol, it smells amazing.”

“Those things don’t work. That’s perfume and water. You’re just giving the floor a bath.”
`
“That’s a pretty good line. I might use that.”

“Be my guest, as they say. You need to take lye, ammonia, vinegar and scalding water, and put it in a metal bucket, not plastic, it’ll burn right through it. Then you taste it: if it tastes like beets it’s ready to go. It’s perfectly harmless. I gave your father a lye and cauliflower enema once a month and he was regular as a church bell. And forget about that mop of yours, mister. You need to scrub it by hand, then rinse it with more hot water, then scrub it again. When you can’t see your fingerprints, that’s when you’re done. You could eat off our floor.”

“And I did. Maybe I should use a flamethrower, just to make sure I really get in there.”

“Well, you need to.”

“Let me see, what else is new…. I think I need a new bed. It’s kind of soft in the middle.”

“We bought our mattress straight from the factory. We pulled up to the back and they slid it right into the station wagon, still in the plastic. You don’t want some dirty salesman from God knows where touching your bed. They’re only in those jobs to sleep with women who want a discount. Remember your Aunt Janice? That pool table?”

“You seem to know things that no one else does, Mom. Or maybe you have an earwig. I hear they rip up your brain and carry it to their nests.”

“I still have the plastic. It’s very thick, you could wrap a dead cat in it and it wouldn’t stink, even in July. It’s still in the garage.”

“What, the cat?”

“The plastic. It must be a quarter-inch thick. I cut it up and made masks out of it when the Covid started. I want people to see my face. No hiding for me.”

“I don’t remember us having a station wagon?”

“We borrowed it from the Hadwins across the street. Neighbours were neighbours in those days, you helped each other out, not like the freaks these days who run into their houses the second they park their cars. We used to talk to each other all the time. Now I don’t know a soul. If I didn’t have my binoculars I wouldn’t know half of what’s going on around here. Have you had dinner?”

“It’s three o’clock.”

“Never too early for a proper meal. I had stew for breakfast, yum yum. Did you ever turn over your mattress? We did it every morning. That’s how we kept it for forty years.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Every morning. We even paid that nice Gary Hadwin to flip it when we were on vacation.”

“You mean… when no one was sleeping on it?”

“You’re darn right. His father looked like Tony Franciosa. Hubba hubba.”

“Did you just say hubba hubba?”

“I sure did. Hubba hubba.”

“I heard he had a terrible temper.”

“Who, Mr. Hadwin? He never said boo. He stayed in the basement all night with that model train set. They buried him in his striped overalls. Mary wanted a casket shaped like a train but it was a fortune. I should call her.”

“Tony Franciosa. Apparently he had a bad temper. A good woman cured him.”

“That’s nice. Well, he was no Bill Bixby. Hubba hubba hubba.”

“Mom, you need to stop saying hubba hubba.”

“I can say whatever I want. We used to love that show, The Hulk. One year I made your father into the Hulk for the church Halloween party. I used my acrylic paints. He ripped his shirt open on the dance floor in front of everybody. He even wore an earphone from our little radio, because the actor, he was deaf, right?”

“Lou Ferrigno.”

“What? Anyway, your father went up to all the wives all night long, screaming at them to speak louder because he couldn’t hear, except he mumbled it because the actor couldn’t talk very well or something. It was so much fun. Those were the good old days.”

“I’m recording this conversation so people will know what white people were like. Did you go as Mrs. Hulk?”

“I don’t remember. I think I was a nurse.”

“That makes sense.”

“He was barefoot, your father, and he slipped and fell on some potato salad. Oh my God did we laugh. We all brought a dish, it was a pot luck. That’s how it was then. Except for that “b”, Denise Busby. She was “too busy to cook.” Her daughter was a top gymnast. Whoop-de-do. You knew her.”

“Nope.”

“Yes you did. She was in your grade. She’s as phony as her mother.”

“Never heard of her until this second.”

“Busby, Candy Busby!”

“Oh, right, Candy Busby. Good ol’ Candy. I think she ended up trying to sell her baby. The one she had with that nice Gary Hadwin.”

“Really?”

“Mom. I honestly never heard of her.”

“It’s just as well. Her mother thought her you-know-what didn’t stink.”

“Maybe she wrapped it in that plastic of yours. I used to think dad was Fred Flintstone. I think every kid did.”

“That’s interesting. I have something on the stove, sweetie.”

“Okay Mom. I have to go buy some lye anyway. I’ll call you soon, okay?”

“Don’t buy the powder. That’s useless. Get the pellets.”

“Right. I hate powdered lye. Actually, that’s what Candy was snorting when we met. It’s all coming back to me now.”

“Okay, ‘bye now. Love you.”

“‘Bye, Mom.”

*** You can buy Jim’s stunning, hilariously fantastic new book, Temporary Libraries here.