Mary comes back to play!

I'll be out of town for the holidays, and my eyeballs will be filled with wonders too rich to sully by casting them upon any electronic screen. So please enjoy a visit by our friend Mary! It's not her first rodeo here on Me, You, and Ellie, and now she's back to regale us with more hilarity. When Mary sent me this post, I replied: "I wish my kids were as scared of me as I once was of my mom." It's not that she was scary, per se.. it's just that we didn't really consider any option other than to do what she said. When I get back from vacation, remind me to figure out how to be more like Mary's as my mom.

I am one of five children.  A child of the ‘70s where we were often told to “go play outside!” and  knew that meant “don’t come back ‘till dinner.”  My father was a pilot for United and was often gone for days at a time which meant my mom ruled the roost (well, she ruled it when he was in town as well)!  If she told us to do something, we did it, and usually right away!  She didn’t care to hear our opinions on the matter.

One day, when my dad was out of town, my mom asked told my brother and I to pull some weeds in the backyard.  I was probably 10 or 11 making him 7 or 8.  She gave us one of those large, black garbage bags and a small shovel and we knew not to come back inside until the job was done.  It must have recently rained because the dirt was soft and the weeds came out pretty easily, however, they came out with large clumps of dirt attached.  Being kids with tunnel vision and hearing, we didn’t remove the dirt clods (she said “pull the weeds” after all….).  When we were finished clearing the area and filling the garbage bag, we tried to pick it up but couldn’t.  It was HEAVY!!!  I mean, it would NOT budge!!  So we went inside and told our mom we couldn’t move the bag of weeds.  She looked at us like we were aliens from another planet and said: “What do you mean you can’t move it?!?!?  Put it with the garbage cans!!!”  (The garbage cans were located on the side of the house towards the front yard.)  Knowing better than to talk back, we retreated to the backyard while mumbling our grievances under our breath.  I don’t recall how long it took for us to devise a plan, but eventually we found a large piece of plywood and we were able to roll the bag onto the plywood and then drag and push the whole caboodle over to the cans.

Days later, when my dad was back in town and it was trash day, he went outside to put the cans on the curb.  I don’t know what transpired outside but he came back in and said to my mom: “What the hell is in that garbage bag?  I can’t even lift it!’