At present I won't tell you how much I weigh. Let's just say I can't fit into anything at Saks anymore unless it's in the Men's Section. I'm standing in the middle of my mother's bedroom watching her get ready for the New Years Eve Service at Church. The purple monstrosity lying in plastic at the foot of her bed catches my eye briefly. I start looking, well, not exactly looking, but hoping, that "thing" had nothing to do with me.
" Mum when I said I would come to church with you I didn't mean on New Years. I have plans with Sophie and Rene." I say this very slowly for she pretends to go daft when she's being told something she does not want to hear.
"Wa kinda of plans?" She asks while looking at me from her dresser mirror. "All yu girls goin do is drink rum and try to pick up boys."
"That's is not true mum. We might have a drink or two to ring in the New Year, but in no way shape or form are we going to pick up boys." Two sets of brown eyes meet again in the mirror: one set has the cunning, hungry look of a buzzard circling their prey, while, the other pair; mine have the look of a wounded deer trying to escape.
"M'ah me never ask any thing of you", she says this with a straight face. My mouth falls open but before I can say anything she rattles on. " All I ask is that you start the New Year with yu poor old mumma. Is that so hard? This might be the last New Year I live to see before Jesus calls me home and…
"OK, OK, I interrupt. I know the speech by heart. I call it the “Fred Sanford speech" she's always having the big one. One foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel when she wants her way. Sometimes I'm tempted to give her a little......NO I'M NOT. It's times like these when I really dislike my brother Sam. He and his wife Karin live 3000 miles away in Seattle so he doesn't have to deal with phony palpitations and angina attacks.
"I'll go but I'm not going to any after church mosh pit party". I say this with a little chuckle trying to make a little joke. I'll wait for you downstairs. I do an 'about face' and with my hand barely touching the door knob, she says in her sweetest voice, M'ah yu naw wear that? Eh?
Oh shit. I know where she's going with this one she's going to try and make me wear the thing at the bottom of the bed. I have two choices: run to the bathroom, lock the door, start flushing the toilet repeatedly and tell mum I ate a some bad curry or put on a flack jacket, smear some camouflage paint on my face and jump right in to the melee. Neither was going to work......shit!!!!!!!!!!!