Marie's Favorite Stories

My mother has been living with me since March 2017. I know she is probably unhappy about this, but she can't live by herself and I'm the only game in town. So when she was released from the hospital I brought her straight to my house.

As you can imagine, it's been quite an adjustment for everyone. We have never had much of a relationship, so this makes it a little...challenging at times. Old wounds are reopened, "convenient memory" kicks in on occasion and I know she'd rather be anywhere but here having me take care of her. And trust me: it's work!

But every so often we have good moments, and usually at my expense. And I let her. Brie and Kitty love when she reminisces about me when I was a kid because I was odd with a capital O. Marie talks and the girls laugh and laugh. I just roll my eyes and ignore them until my mother ultimately says, "Why did you do that?" That's when I side eye her and threaten to tell stories about stuff she did when SHE was younger.

At the risk of incriminating myself, I'm going to briefly tell you a couple of things that Marie loves to tell my girls. She likes to tell them that I was afraid of water and every time she washed my hair I thought she was trying to drown me. She enjoys telling them I was afraid of dogs, and how Keith and Carl would tell their puppy to "sic me" and I would run screaming and crying from a puppy that was too small to run and was just hopping after me. And Marie likes to tell them about the weird things I would eat: baking soda, flour, toothpaste and lotion.

But Marie's all-time favorite story that my girls love the most is this. Back when it was just Keith, Carl and me, my parents both smoked. In those days they smoked in the house like it was okay. Anyhoo, eventually both of my parents quit smoking cold turkey. And would you like to know the reason why??? Because apparently Keith and Carl liked to blow the ashes out of the ashtrays, and then I would eat the cigarette butts! Marie swears this is a true story and the girls think it's the funniest story ever. Seriously.

So every couple of months or so my mother will find a reason to bring this up so Brie and Kitty can chortle in mirth. And I let her and don't get mad. I mean it isn't like I do it now. And it brings a little joy to Marie. So I guess it's worth it.

But one day I'm going to tell a few stories about her. After all: isn't turnabout fair play???