My mom passed away in 2000, so Mother’s Day is always bittersweet. The best gift she gave me was a sense of humor and I miss her knee-slapping, foot stomping laughter more than anything else. A few years after her death, my siblings and I exchanged a series of emails with memories of our mother. Eventually, I collected them all and they became The Mom Stories. The incident below is one of them and happened when I was 15.
AVIANCE AND A BRICK
I was in the laundry room filling the washing machine, and Mom was in the kitchen or family room. The TV was on, and I could hear the commercial for Aviance perfume in the background. If you don’t remember that one, it went like this:
“I’ve been sweet and I’ve been good, I’ve had a whole full day of motherhood, but I’m gonna have an Aviance night.”
Evidently, Mom was in one of her playful moods, because all of a sudden she opened the laundry room door singing “I’m gonna have an Aviance night!”, and then tried to snap me with a rolled up towel. The first couple of tries missed, and she was giggling like a little girl while I tried to jump out of the way. Finally, she landed a vicious snap on my rear end. I hollered, and at first she got a shocked look on her face, covering her mouth with her hand (still smiling of course). I think it surprised her that she actually nailed me, along with some concern that I might be hurt.
Thinking fast, I grabbed a towel from the floor and snapped it in her direction. She took off toward the family room squealing and shouting my name and laughing to beat the band. I was right on her heels snapping away – around the corner, past the little bathroom and down the long hall toward the front door; the same door that was being held open by a needlepoint-covered brick.
Unfortunately for Mom, she either wasn’t watching or simply got too close and rammed her foot, full tilt, into that stupid brick. She yelped in pain and started crying, hobbling far enough to sit down on the bottom step near the door. Well of course I thought she was just messing around, trying to keep me from exacting my revenge. I was laughing at her, and she was yelling at me that it wasn’t funny…until I finally figured out she wasn’t kidding and really did hurt herself. It wasn’t until later on we discovered she had broken her big toe. I think it’s safe to say that when Dad got home, they were not going to have an Aviance night!
Postscript – The offending brick now resides by my front door.
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