With Mother’s Day looming just around the corner, I was reflecting on my own experiences growing up with my mother (and when you sit in the sun in a tin foil hat and mirrorball sequinned jacket, you can do nothing else but, reflect). And whilst extinguishing the dying embers of a smouldering grass fire in my backyard (should have picked a slightly less sunny day for reflection), a couple of incidents come to mind, like…remember the time I wore that mirrorball jacket and burned down the backyard…
Or…
Remember last week when I was trying on jeans in the change rooms and the sexy young sales assistant half my age, snuck in and grabbed me on the crotch?
Okay, you got me. That didn’t really happen. Well…it did, but it didn’t. I mean, it did actually happen, just not like that…exactly. Imagine the same scenario except…flip the ages around and substitute the sales assistant for…you guessed it…MY MOTHER! Probably the most embarrassing thing a mother could ever do to their son…
Take him shopping…for jeans.
Because you always know the moment is gonna come when she bursts through the curtain, which face it, is the world’s flimsiest attempt at privacy and security (see PVC shower curtain or First Class section on a plane), and not only does she usually pull back the curtain whilst your strides are still around your ankles, but why is it, the very first place they go for is…
“Have you got enough room in the crotch?”
And the reason why there is ALWAYS plenty of room in the crotch when you’re trying on jeans with your mother is because of exactly that…you’re trying on jeans WITH YOUR MOTHER!!! And everything that usually resides in your crotch has retreated so far back up inside yourself, you can hardly stand upright and you are mere inches away from completely disappearing up inside your own body cavity.
Incidentally, that’s not the only time I’ve been grabbed on the crotch in public. I was also grabbed on the crotch in the middle of a nightclub while carrying a beer in both hands…BY A MAN! I should have just punched him right in the face but…I had two beers to finish. It was the most awkward 20 minutes of my life.
And then there was the time the tables were turned and I embarrassed my mother, when I did that horribly politically incorrect, insensitive kind of thing called…being a stoopid teenager (by pretending to be mentally disabled when visiting my aunty in hospital). It’s horrible I know, but I was a teenager and you know, it’s what we did back then. Approaching the hospital I slurred my speech, added a limp and even drooled a little. And like you, right now, she was mortified. So much so, she started slapping me repeatedly to cut it out. Which, to people in the carpark coming out of the hospital, seemed like a terrible mother beating her mentally disabled son. I know, I’m a monster.
But what I reflect upon the most, is the time I got my ass whipped by a bully, a year ahead of me at school. I came home crying, my shirt all torn, my nose bloodied, wearing my underpants wedgie as a hat and before I could even blubber the words out of my mouth, she’d slam dunked me into the car and you couldn’t see us for smoke as the tyres squealed with horror underneath us. She may be small in stature, but you do anything to hurt her kids and by god…she is ready to rumbaaaaaaaaal!
The bully’s parents owned a new motel in town and when my mother kicked through the front doors, it was High Noon at the OK Corral. She tore strips off him, strips off the mother and I was so worked up, I threw up all over their new carpet in their foyer. Word to the wise, don’t mess with us, we’ll come at you with both barrels heaving. I’ve never been so proud and it’s a great secure feeling to know that someone you love so much has got your back like that.
So through it all, through all the embarrassing moments, one thing is definitely clear…I need a different mum (I kid, I kid…monster, I tells ya). No, what is clearly evident is that…you love your kids no matter what and we in turn, love you right back.
Happy Mother’s Day
Lucky I’d finished my coffee or it’d be all over my screen. The best Mother’s Day post evah!!! Evah I tells ya!
And scarily enough, it was all true…except the part about the mirrorball jacket…the tin foil hat, I still have. (Also, not true).
Well since it’s just you and me here, I’ll let you in on a secret… lean in… *whispers* I’m not really a frog.
Honesty will set you free!!
Good God…..well some of that was embarrassing, but yes indeed…..your mother always has your back no matter what age you be……lol xx
Yes, mum…I know you do 😉 xxx
I nearly spurted tea across the table reading this. So funny. With two sons, I will fight for them like your Mum and promise not to grab their crotch when trying on jeans (or any other time). The part about her slapping her ‘disabled’ son up the street was hilarious, you rotter lol
Should have come with a tea and/or coffee splurting warning disclaimer…my bad 🙁 and funny that “rotter” is what my mum calls me now. Back then…expletive-expletive-expletive.
Ha ha. And my second comment was because the first one ‘disappeared’ and I thought it didn’t post. Trying to reply to posts via iPhone is a PITA.
Rotter 😉
liar liar pants on fire u rotter!! lol
You got me there, Ma. Never once in your entire life did you call me “expletive-expletive-expletive”…they were all much more colourful words than that 😉
So funny. Wrong – but funny. Love it.
I promise to never grab my son’s crotch (I have two). But I will come to their defense of bullied and slap them upside the head if they pretend to be disabled.
If a slap upside the head doesn’t work, there’s always the very real threat of shopping for jeans and testing the crotch, to set them in their place.
Exactly 🙂
Where can I purchase one of these silver sequinned jackets. I think Dadabulous would look rather fetching in one and my girls could stage a disco by its glow.
As far as I’m aware, there’s only a select few people who own one. Me, Elton John and Joffa from the Collingwood Football Club (mind you, his is gold and pretty sure he got it from Eddie McGuire). Just don’t wear it on a sunny day out in the sun, or look at yourself in a mirror while wearing it. You might travel back in time.
Justin I laughed from start to finish. That was very, very funny.
Thanks, Rory. And being a boy yourself at one stage, a little relatable too, I imagine. The crotch part, I mean. If you’ve experienced any of the others then…I have the number of a very good therapist.
I love that your mum comments on your blog.
My mum comments on mine too.
Make of that what you will.
Next to my lovely wife of course, my Ma is my 2nd biggest fan. After all, she made me what I am today…make of that what you will 😉
That was hilarious. I am shaking my head at myself, because I shouldn’t have laughed at the way you got your mum back, but it’s so easy to picture that as a scene from a sitcom. Fantastic!
Yeah, but it’s probably more Curb Your Enthusiasm than Family Ties.
He didn’t just do that when he was visiting his Aunty either…..anytime….anywhere & you know
when Harry met Sally he did embarrassing stuff like that too the little rotter…. lol