A LEGEND Named Gladys. I call her MOM.
A LEGEND Named Gladys. I call her MOM.
My mom is perhaps one of the most fabulously ridiculous people I know. Here’s why:
1. She used to put cigarettes out all over our property and one day my dad asked her why she sticks them in the ground rather than throwing them out. She said, “I plant them in hopes that they will grow a cigarette tree.”
2. My mom doesn’t care about the internet. She’s not old fashioned in any way — quite progressive, actually. But she doesn’t have a computer, she doesn’t go online and she’s never had an e mail address. So when I’m talking to her and asking for something she says, “Okay, send me an e mail about it.” It NEVER gets old.
3. She used to leave me funny voice mails in college and I would forward them to my friends through the school’s internal phone system. They would forward them to others because they were that good. They went viral and she had a following. The best one was when I left her a message asking for money for spring break and I said that she might as well invest in me now because I’d be taking care of her when she was older, feeding and changing old lady diapers. Her message back was, “You won’t have to do much to take care of me. Just change my colostomy bag and put a straw in a bottle of wine and tell me to suck. I’m not giving you money.”
4. I got fired as a bus boy from the Lobster Roll in Amagansett, Long Island one summer while I had friends from college staying with me. We all went out that night and when we got home the bathroom mirror said, “GET A JOB YOU LAZY LUMP” - written with soap.
5. My mom never met an animal print she didn’t like. Two years ago I was Snooki for Halloween and I wore a tight lycra zebra print dress from American Apparel. I described it to my mom and she asked if she could have it when I was done.
6. Sophomore year in high school my mom and I started going to a tanning salon. She would pick me up from track practice and when I got in the car she would say, “I brought your goggles, we’re going tanning.” My nick name in high school was Malibu Ken.
7. In high school she would wake me up every day saying, “Time to get up poop face.” Sometimes I would say, “I’m so tired” and she would say, “I’ll call you out of first period.” She still calls me poop face. And she’s the reason why I felt comfortable cutting classes in college.
8. When my mom first got a Cell Phone she didn’t know how to record the outgoing voice mail message. So I recorded it for her. It’s still her outgoing message when you call. I also taught her how to text. And despite not having a computer, she picked up texting really fast. She texts in code like a teenager. Sometimes she writes 4 5 9. I was like, “what is that?” It’s code for “I Love You.”
9. Gladys doesn’t believe in debit cards. She doesn’t have one. She writes herself checks and cashes them in order to have cash on hand. And she balances her check book.
10. She sometimes goes by an alias and it’s amazing….But I won’t blow her cover.
The best part of all of this - I’m her son. Which means I’m kind of like her.