I admit it—in some cases, I am the idiot. I like to complain that lots of other people
are the dummies, but occasionally (very rarely) I am the dummy.
In my defense, I was five years old. Okay, I guess I should start at the
beginning. We all love our moms. They feed us, they clothe us, and they yell
at us when we throw our sister onto the coffee table and the coffee table
breaks. Do I wish that my sister got in
more trouble when she was “on my side” in the back seat of the station
wagon? Absolutely. No one is perfect.
My mom gave me some “tough love” when I was five
years old, and it was one of the following:
1. A “life lesson” that stayed with me all these
years and helped make me who I am today
2. A severe mental and emotional scarring that has
haunted my actions ever since
Either way, I have to respect my mom’s decision to
yell at a small child. It worked! Here’s the story:
Thirty-two degrees Celsius. The middle of summer. Sweltering, boiling heat. The family camper is static on the shores of
British Columbia. My mom, dad, my sister
and me are patiently waiting for the ferry to show up.
Well, okay—most of us were waiting patiently. I was being a jerk. Did I mention I was five? I was asking at random intervals where the
ferry was, and why wasn’t it here already?
It was totally random—I was asking either every two seconds or every
three seconds, depending on my mood.
My dad finally had enough. He did the honorable thing and went for a
short walk—and took my sister with him.
They were going to walk along the huge lineup of cars and endure the
sweaty summer heat just to escape my constant yapping.
That left me and my mummy.
The mom smokes and has for her whole life. I used to take the tin foil wrapper and make
little miniature trophies for my action figures. If it was a gold wrapper, then Captain
America won the championship for punching Lex Luthor.
We had a camper that sat on the back of a pickup
truck. My mom was sitting in the camper
with the back door wide open, trying to get some peace through nicotine since
it wasn’t happening with me.
“Mummy, mummy... I would like a cigarette too!” I
yelled from two feet away.
“No.”
That, my friends, is the correct answer. Parent of the year award please!
I persisted. “Mummy,
mummy... I want a cigarette!”
“No!”
I started tugging on her leg. “Mummy!
MUMMMMMY!”
This went on for five or ten minutes before she
finally snapped like a matchstick.
“FINE!”
I had never gotten my way before so I stopped in
stunned silence. She handed me a lit cigarette.
“HERE!”
You know how Bill Clinton said that he never
inhaled?
I grabbed that cigarette with my tiny five-year-old
hands and inhaled. Deep and long.
Then the coughing began. I’m not a medical professional, but I
estimate that my coughing fit lasted between five and seven days. That’s what it felt like, anyways. My mum claims that it was thirty seconds, but
I seem to remember it differently.
As I was lying on the floor of the camper, gasping
for breath and trying to figure out why adults enjoyed doing this sort of thing,
I realized that I needed to drink some water.
I was dying. This was my last
request. “Water,” I gasped.
So far, my mom has been doing pretty good. A lot of hard-core disciplinarians are
thinking, “right on, this lady knows how to handle the inmates at the prison!” Well, it gets better.
There was no water.
She handed me one-eighth of an apple.
Here I was, convulsing on the floor, going into what
today we would define as a medical seizure or some sort of demonic possession,
and I was sucking on an apple slice. You
know those old “apple ladies” you see at craft stores, that are made out of
dehydrated apples? Well, cut that into
eight pieces and that was what I ended up with.
I sucked all the juice out of that apple slice.
With tears rolling down my face, I sat up from the
floor of the camper, dizzy and confused.
My mom got right in my face.
“DON’T EVER SMOKE!
I smoke and I hate it!” She was
crying too.
At that moment, my dad and my sister popped their
head around the corner of the camper. He
saw my red face, snot dribbling down my nose, and my mom sitting on the camper
couch crying.
“I think we’ll do another lap,” he mumbled and
disappeared with my sister for another half hour.
The moral of the story is that moms are great! I never started smoking, nor have I had any
desire to even smell smoke. Or even see
a cigarette. Or sit in a parking lot and
wait for a ferry.
Thanks mom for dishing out the tough love—I am over
forty years old and I haven’t been convicted of a crime even one time! You must be doing something right.
