A Conversation With My Mom

My mom and I were talking about life in Butte, Montana (where both she, and I was born).

She mentioned her aunt's house that was up on a hill overlooking the town. At the bottom of the hill was a vacant lot the city would fill with water in the winter to make an ice skating rink. From the time my sister (Denise/Deny) and I could walk we could ice skate. We each had a little pair of white figure skates. If we weren't home, we'd be at the ice rink skating.

Mom: “You used to skate all the time and you were very good. I don't know what happened when we moved here, you sat down and never got up again...”

Me: “I got up to go to the bathroom, school and shopping. , then later on I got up to go to work. Making your statement void and without merit.”

Mom: “Your sister had a boyfriend.”

Me: “She had a few.”

Mom: “No. At the skating rink. She had a boyfriend at the skating rink. He would take her hand, and they would skate around the rink holding hands. He was much older than she was.”

Me: “How old was he? He couldn't have been much older because we weren't very old to begin with.”

Mom: ” He was five. He used to call my uncle every day to see if she would be at the rink that evening to skate. My uncle would tell him he didn't know any Denise and if he did he wouldn't let her talk to him because he was too old for her.”

Me: “That's funny. Poor kid! So, you let Denise have a boyfriend at two years old....she was always a hussy.”

Mom: “You didn't have a boyfriend. You were too bossy, nobody liked you.”

Me: “The whole “no boyfriend” thing is keeping with a theme, huh... We all know how I like a good theme. As for being bossy, that was my Royal DNA kicking in. Even at a young age I knew I would rule the world some day and was practicing. There is a need for leaders, even the toddlers at the skating rink — I was just filling the bill.”

Mom: “Now you don't have a boyfriend and nobody likes you because you're delusional.”

Me: “I can live with that.”

Mom: “Well I can't, so snap out of it! How did I give birth to you? Sometimes I just look at you and  wonder...”

Me laughing: “Neil (my brother) and Denise used to wonder the same thing, remember? Too funny!”

I turned to look at her, and she was looking at me with “that” look and I finally knew what she was thinking...” You know, mom, Superman was beamed down from another planet into a field where his earth parents found him, took him home and raised him.... You don't have flashbacks of a field somewhere do you?”

Mom: “Just go, Raylene...”

Me: “How about a burning bush and a cute guy with nice hair and wings?”

Mom: “Not funny, Raylene. Now go!”

I'm thinking she wouldn't want to read my own rewritten version of Genesis where God creates the world, and then He creates me... I'm thinking I can lay that on her on a Two Martini Sunday, not a No Martini Tuesday.....
(©2016 Raylene Deschenes)