Dear Mom,
Sorry about the couch. …remember, the new one that you told me “if you do ANYTHING to this couch while I am away in Ottawa this week I WILL KILL you”?, yeah, the one with the new tear in it by Saturday morning?
That’s the one, I am still sorry 'bout that, honest.
I am also still sorry about your new MR2 that I had to beg you to drive, weaselling and wheedling until you finally broke down… even though the crack in the front air dam was barely noticeable it caused me no end of guilt when I would notice it. You would think a nice big snowbank would be softer, huh?
Burns in your carpet are too many to mention and to tell the truth, in comparison to the time when Gerald Payne ended up buried in the hallway drywall up to his shoulders it kinda seems a little insignificant. On the plus side, I did get to practice my drywall patching technique and was able to discover that I have no skill at it. The picture you hung over it looked pretty good though.
Come to think about it, Gerald was also the one who crashed your new beau, Mike’s Cadillac wasn’t he? Too bad Mike never came around again, I liked him…he was rich too wasn’t he?
At least Gerald wasn’t the one who made you miss your connecting flight to Ottawa when we returned from San Diego in '87 due to a “strange baggie with green particles in it” that was cleverly dismissed with a “Oh, THAT?..I um found it and wanted it as a souvenir” by David Ruff. Good old Dave, at least when your Boss from Ottawa came over for dinner later that year and finally met the guy responsible for you missing the opening of your seminars Dave was able to apologize in person with a “Dude, fuck sorry man”. I think that Berry (your Boss) appreciated it but no more so when Dave got impaired and repeated it at close range for the 68th time. Repetition signifies sincerity and I think Berry picked up on that, I know he was in a good mood by the way he was giggling whenever the topic of “promotion” came up so I think it all ended good, right?
However, in reading what I have written so far one could get the impression that I was a bad kid who’s friends caused you no end of grief, not so really. Do you remember when Bernd Binder came over and helped vacuum up all of the finger printing dust from your Chrysler Cordoba (it was easy to wipe it from the rich, Corinthian leather). He was a helpful guy, I mean he wasn’t even in the car when we were arrested so him coming to help sure was nice. Looking back, I am sure that a week with your car in the impound lot made you realize just how lucky you were to own a car and although not my intent I am sure that the lesson learned by both of us made us better people. I know I am.
All in all Mom, without dragging more of the past up you have always been there for me through lessons both easy and hard and cheap and expensive (really expensive…)…Thank you for that and I know that the muttered “I hope YOUR kids…grumble, grumble…bloody treat you…”'s were only spoken out of frustration, at least that is what your therapist used to tell me.
Happy Mothers Day Mom, I love you.
A lot.
xxx
Jeff
“Men are what their mothers made them”
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson