texas or bust

I called my mother last week to tell her that I was coming to visit.

"Hi Mom!" I said as soon as she picked up the phone.

"Hullo?" I heard her say. Her speech sounded muffled and distant.

"Turn the phone around!" I hollered.

"Who's that?" she demanded, directly into the earpiece. She keeps picking up the phone upside down. You can't blame her, really. When she first starting using telephones you cranked it up, held a cup to your ear and shouted into a box on the wall. It was all very straight forward.

"Ma, you're holding the phone upside down. Turn it around!" I shouted, presumably into her mouth.

"Oh, wait a minute! I'm holding it upside down!" She giggled. I listened as she shuffled things around. Sometimes she says she's going to turn the TV down, and I hear her hitting the buttons on the phone. I've done the same thing, truth be told, pointing the phone at the TV in a vain attempt to change the channel. And people wonder why I don't have a cell phone.

"How you doing, Ma?"

"Yesterday I ate seven...maybe eight... chocolate Ex-Lax!" she exclaimed. She could not have sounded more delighted.

"You did what now?"

"Here, I'll let Joel tell you." My brother got on the line.

"I handed her the package," he began, "and told her to take two. I meant two squares. I don't know why I didn't snap to it ~ I should have known she'd take two whole bars ~ half the whole thing. More than half."

"How is she? Is she OK?"

He gave a low chuckle. "It was a nerve-wracking night, I can tell you. I came in and checked on her a few times. She seemed fine. Just fell asleep. She was out like a light." He laughed again. "She liked it! She's happy about it. You know how she is".

Indeed I do. My mother has been addicted to laxatives for as long as I can remember. She's refused to take medication of any kind, including aspirin, for most of her life, but laxatives are another story; she can't get through the day without them. She thinks of them as vitamins. Never having developed a taste for fresh fruits or vegetables, she has always preferred to just take a pill, then relax and enjoy a diet of fried chicken, cheese omelettes and ice cream. Need fiber? She put two desserts on the table for dinner every night when I was growing up. I developed into a rather plump teenager. She, on the other hand, weighed all of 105 pounds then; 86 pounds soaking wet now. Go figure.

She got back on the phone.
"So how you feeling, Mom?"

"Pretty good!" she chirped.

"Listen, I called to tell you I'm coming for your birthday!"

"Oh, that's nice. When?"

"On your birthday! Well, the last week in April, anyway. It's a long story. I have to fly on a Wednesday because..."

"Good, good....I have to go now."

"What...why? What's the rush?"

"I just have to go!" She laughed. "Can't wait to see you. Bye!"

She hung up.

So I'm off to Texas, to party with Mom and her Peeps, on the occasion of her 92nd birthday. I have no idea what to get her. Maybe a box of chocolates. The box will say Godiva, but the contents might be a whole 'nother story.

And poor Hubs. He'll be all alone with the Stalker.