Did I Mention My Mom's a Nurse, and That I'm a Spinster Lady?

Ma Smash: I got here right in time to see him born.

Me: No way! He was waiting!

Ma Smash: Yup! Three pushes and he was out.

Me: Ew.

Ma Smash: Oh, look! Here comes the placenta!

Me: EW.

Ma Smash: That's so interesting. You know, it looks just like cube steak!

Welcome to planet earth, Baby Oz Piddlington. Your Mommy is brave and your Gramma is ridiculous.

Virtual Cab Ride With Ma Smash

Ma Smash: Hi, honey!

Me: Hi, Mom. I'm in a cab and I have to tell you, I think I'm drunk.

Ma Smash: Oh, dear. Well, I guess it's a good thing you're not in the subway then.

Me: Dennis wouldn't let me.

Ma Smash: He's a good boy. You tell him I said that. Sweetheart?

Me: Hmmm?

Ma Smash: Sorry, I thought you made a sound.

Me: It stinks in here.

Ma Smash: Oh dear.

Me: It does. It smells like the backside of balls on a hot day.

Ma Smash: Excuse me, miss: And how would you know?

Me: Er.

Ma Smash: On second thought, I don't want to know.

Me: I heard it somewhere.

Ma Smash: Just take a shower when you get home. And wash your hair.

I weep for those who must subsist without the advice of their mothers.

Even Ma Smash Has Her Limits

Ma Smash: (About a mutual acquaintance.) Girlfriend? Oh, that's right: She's bisexual, isn't she?

Me: She's not bisexual.

Ma Smash: I thought she was.

Me: She says she is.

Ma Smash: You don't think she is?

Me: If she's bisexual, I will go right out into the street and have sex with the first woman I see.

Ma Smash: Oh my. Oh no.

Me: In fact, I'll go over to the bodega and have sex with that one lady behind the counter who doesn't have any teeth at all. That's what I'll do.

Ma Smash: I'll give you five real American dollars if you don't.

Atrophy Appropriate to Age

A couple weeks ago, Ma Smash got whacked in the head with an X-ray machine at work. She's a nurse, so this isn't as strange as it would be if, say, I were whacked in the head with an X-ray machine at work. Anyhoo, she got a concussion and had to have a head CT, among other tests. The result of the CT, while not at all bad, was a bit depressing to her.

"I need some cheering up," she said today on the phone. "When they showed me my CT? The doctor said..."

"WHAT?"

"Nothing bad. Ugh ... he said my brain showed atrophy appropriate to age."

"But that's not bad?"

"No, except that I'm old."

I thought a minute. "OK, here's what it's like. Oh! Here's what it's exactly like. It's like when I asked my gyno for Gardasil and she said I couldn't get it, because I'm a super-old whore."

"Jennifer Hubley. She did not say that."

"Well, no. But she thought it. And she laughed."

Mom paused. "Atrophy appropriate to age."

"I know what. This will cheer you up: We'll go find that doctor and kick him in the balls."

"Promise?"

"Sure. And you know you love to watch shows where people get kicked in the balls."

"I do!"

It's a very strange relationship that we have, but it works.

Mom Loves That Angelina Jolie

Ma Smash: Oh her. She's so homely, I just don't understand.

Me: She's gotten very thin, it's true.

Ma Smash: Terrible legs. They're like sticks. And she has those big, whorey lips for giving blow jobs, for more money.

Me: ???

Ma Smash: For anyone! Anyone! Boy, girl, she doesn't care. Anyone who wants one, gets one.

Pipe Dreams

Me: Well, you know, all these grandkids you're gonna have might be loud. Maybe when we get our palatial estate by the beach, we should have me and Mrs. P in one house and you and Dad in another.

Ma Smash: Oh, I'll be deaf as a haddock. It won't matter.

Me: A ... haddock?

Ma Smash: Yup.

Me: How deaf is a haddock exactly?

Ma Smash: Oh, totally deaf. They have no ears. Go take a peek. I'll wait.

Me: Yes, good idea. I'll go take a peek at the many haddock I have on hand.

Ma Smash: Go ask the neighbors. Norwegians love fish!

Your Hair Is So Round!

A couple months back, Mrs. Piddlington and Ma Smash came to visit me in New York. Because I am an excellent hostess, I took them to all the tourist spots. We went to the Empire State Building, the Algonquin for brunch and got our hair straightened in Chinatown. This last was the cheapest and definitely the most interesting.

I love getting my hair straightened. I have very, very, very curly hair. So curly that I can't brush it when it's dry, lest I bush out the curls. So curly that when I used to comb my hair, I used a pick, not a comb. Curly hair, my pals. When someone mentions how curly, I call them racist.

I have come to love my hair, after fighting against it for most of my life, but it's fun to have it all sleek and straight. It's like being in disguise. If you go to any salon on East Broadway in Chinatown, you can get a blow-out for ten bucks, and they massage your head like crazy into the bargain. They clean your ears. The first time I had this done, I was ashamed at how they dug in there, like there was definitely something wrong with my normal hygiene practices. Now I just lie back and let them at it.

Mom and Meg were amazed. At the price, at the lo-fi feel of the place (placards from the '80s, featuring girls with punk rock hair cuts and prices written on them in another language, piles of hair left to lie on the floor, and the staff doesn't speak English), at the way you can walk through a door in New York and be in another country. I picked up the tab and felt like a big spender for 30 bucks, and when we all walked out the door, we were movie stars with our freakishly straight hair blowing around us.

But! The best part was definitely when I was in the chair and the stylist's daughters descended. They were maybe six and eight, if I'm guessing, and dressed entirely in bubble-gum pink. The younger one was the talker, looked like a boy with her neat little soup-pan bob and upturned face, and wanted to talk to me about everything.

"You have a cut," she said, poking at a spot on my arm where I'd gotten grazed by my broken fridge door earlier in the day.

The stylist looked at me like, is this OK?

"I do," I said.

"I have a Band-Aid," she said, and reached into a tin in her Dad's station and produced one.

"Let me put that on," I said, too late. "OK, well, don't touch the cut, OK?"

She cocked her head. "Why not?"

"Other people's cuts are dirty."

"But mine aren't?"

"Not to you."

She stuck her tongue out of the side of her mouth. "That doesn't make any sense. Hey! I have a Barbie!" She nudged her sister. "Show her my Barbie."

The sister, looking terrified, pulled a Barbie from behind her back. It was dressed in a bright green dress, very Christmasy, obviously homemade.

"We're going to change her outfit," she said. "Don't look!"

The stylist smiled at me and pulled out the flat-iron.

"Don't look!"

"I'm not," I said, and put my hand over my eyes.

"OK, now look."

The Barbie was now wearing another homemade outfit, this one blue and yellow.

"Pretty!"

"OK, we're going to change it again. Don't look!"

This went on for three or four more outfits. After awhile, she got bored, and climbed up on my lap.

"Oh, hi," I said.

She dug her hands into the side of my hair that wasn't straightened and fixed me with a very serious look, as though she was deciding whether or not to buy me. "Your hair is so round!" she said, pulling out a curl and letting it bounce back.

"It is."

"But it's so round! Is that your sister?"

Easy call: Mom and Meg and I were the only white ladies in the salon.

"She is."

"Her hair isn't round."

"No, it's not."

"Huh. Is that your mother?"

"It is."

"Her hair isn't round."

"Nope. I'm the only one with round hair."

"Why?"

"I don't know. I was born that way."

She nodded solemnly. She pointed at her sister, who now looked terrified completely. "Our hair is the same."

"Yes, it's very pretty."

She shook her head. "Your hair is very, very round."

What can you say? Mouths of babes, etc. It is round.