149. Payback

Friends. I am “Mother-in-Law sitting” this weekend, and C.W. has mysteriously vanished. I think he is afraid of her for some reason. This is odd, for she is one of the gentlest creatures on earth. I think it may be her honesty that frightens him away. The first time she ever saw him, she asked him if he ever had pains.

“Sometimes,” he said.

“I don’t,” she said.

“Oh,” he said, showing a sudden scientific interest. “That must be nice.”

“Well, yes,” she said. “Except for one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“I don’t have anything to talk about.”

So one can see that he finds her a bit unsettling. This one time, she asked him why he couldn’t be satisfied with one shape. He didn’t have a good answer. Then she began asking him to appear in the shape of long departed friends.

“I don’t do ‘made-to-order’ shapes,” he said.

“What kind of alien are you? Where I come from, they take orders all the time. Mothers have to anyway. Did anyone ever wake you up at two o’clock in the morning and tell you they had to have a ballerina dress for school next day?”

Before he could answer, she came at him again. “I’ll bet you never even learned your ‘take-aways.’”

“My what?”

“Your ‘take-aways.’ I was always good at those.”

He just had to ask. “What are ‘take-aways,’ anyhow?”

“You know. Ten take away two is eight. Eight take way two is six. Six take away four is two. They should have taught you those.”

Now he avoids her whenever he can.

So I am here with this wonderful lady, at least I think it is she. She is alternately talking and reading the paper. The conversation is going something like this:

“So they are going to make them carry guns to school?”

“I don’t think they will make them.”

“It’s a shame. One is going to go off and put out a child’s eye. Where is she?”

“Gone to Texas. She will be back next week.”

“She was a good child, not a hillbilly. She was always smart, you know.”

“She still is.”

“Hillary is smart. Do you think she will be the next president?”

“It looks that way.”

“Where is she?”

“Hillary?”

“No. You know …”

“She has gone to Texas.”

“She has a cousin who lives in Texas.”

“Yes, that’s where she went.”

Here's hoping you all spend Mother's Day
with one of your favorite people. - C.W.

“Oh. So she won’t be back today?”

“No. Next week. You and I can do whatever you wish for the entire day.”

“Do you have any peanut butter?”

So, we are going to have fun on Mother’s Day and hope you will as well. I’m sure our friend will be back next week.