My mom is a terrible driver. Just ask the mailbox.
All right, maybe I’m being too hard on her.
She only hit it four or five times.
Never mind that the mailbox was at least three car lengths from where she was trying to park. It must have snuck sneaked up on her while she was looking to see if someone was at the front door of the house.
But the mailbox wasn’t the worst of it.
I can’t even remember all the times she had a little “incident” in the car.
And since I’m striving for accuracy here at Frantically Simple, I think I’ll call and ask her.
(I don’t know how to record and post our conversation – if anyone could teach me that trick, I promise many entertaining posts will come out of it.)
Here is a transcript of our actual conversation with my commentary in italics:
Me: Hi mom, how’re you doing?
She starts giggling
Mom: Fine, but I’m tired. We were working really hard in the yard today.
Two things: First, I can tell she’s been reading my blog, because she can’t stop giggling. And second, catching her when she’s tired is always amusing. It’s as close to drunk as she’ll ever be. (She does not drink at all.)
Me: Mom, I need to ask you some questions for my blog. Do you have a minute?
She begins laughing out right.
Mom: Did you see my comment?
Me: Yeah, it was funny.
Mom: What did people say about it?
Me: Nothing that I know of.
Mom: sounding a little bit disappointed Oh.
Me: People don’t always respond to other comments. But it was funny.
Could someone please respond to her comment? It would mean so much to her. She likes attention even more than I do.
Mom: What did you want to ask about?
Me: Mom, how many cars have you crashed?
Giggling commences again and continues throughout the rest of the conversation.
Mom: I don’t know.
thinking
I couldn’t begin to tell you, probably five or six.
Me: Why do you think that is?
Mom: ‘Cuz other people don’t know how to drive!
giggle-giggle
big sigh
No, I just don’t pay attention.
Me: What are you thinking about when you drive?
more giggling
Mom: I don’t know. Like yesterday I was thinking about trying to put on my seatbelt and I almost rolled into that car behind me.
Me: Oh mom! Be careful!
Being distracted while driving has always been a big problem for my mom. Once she and a friend were driving together from Oregon to Utah. My mom drove first. While the kids fought played, the two ladies visited in the front seat. It must have been a good conversation because six hours after they left they saw a “Welcome to California” sign. Way back when they had first gotten on the freeway, she had gone South instead of North, and she was just now discovering it!
Me: Big accidents aside, tell me about the little ones. How many fender benders, bumps and scrapes would you say you’ve had?
Still laughing.
Mom: Lemme see… I broke the mirror off coming in the gate…I backed into a tree…I slid off the road and hit a tree…Actually, I was wedged between two trees!giggle Now that’s talent!
Me: I wouldn’t actually call that good driving, Mom. Lucky, maybe – that you weren’t hurt, I mean.
So what causes all these accidents? Are you just somewhere else?
Mom: She sounds disgusted. I don’t like snow. That’s my biggest problem.
This woman really hates snow. If she could kill it by running over it with her car, she would.
pauses to think Wait, maybe not just snow…
I do okay on highway, it’s just in town that I lose concentration. I get distracted.
Ooooh look, shiny stores! WHAM!
And one way streets! Like that time in Utah I was going the wrong way on a one way street.
pensive
I totaled that car…
giggling again
Oh! One time it was a mans fault. He sideswiped me in an intersection!
sounds irritated
He just wasn’t paying any attention to what he was doing!
Me: So…one out of ten wasn’t your fault?
Mom: I’m a basket case aren’t I?
Now we’re both giggling.
Me: No comment. Anything else to add for my readers?
I’m wrapping it up, but she sounds like she’s just getting warmed up.
Mom: Proudly One time, I took a lady home form a church meeting. I hit a post coming out.
Me: What about having wheat growing in your car?
When I was little, my mom had a home based business selling Bosch Kitchen Machines. One of her demo items was a wheat grinder. One time a bag of wheat spilled in the car and the wheat kernels sprouted in the carpet. We had a little mobile farm on the floor of our car. And with wheat prices being what they are now, I kind of wish that car was still around.
Mom: Oh, don’t mention that, they’ll think I’m really dirty.
Me: Mom, these are all strangers. Who cares what they think?
I’m sorry. I care about each and every one of my readers. I truly love you all, but I had to convince her not to worry.
Mom: Some people might see it that know me.
Me: If they know you, they already know your car is dirty.
More giggling.
Me: So how many tickets have you gotten?
Mom: proudly Only one ticket in four years.
Me: How do you get out of them all?
Mom: One time I was dressed like Mrs. Claus. I was going down to the, um… whachamacallit? Where I worked?
Me: The nursing home?
She ued to be an activities director at a nursing home.
Mom: Right. I told him, “I’m in a hurry to get these presents to to my residents.” and he let me off.
Another time you got me out of a ticket, don’t you remember? That time I slid under a truck and ended up breaking my ankle? It was just a week or so after my hysterectomy? The cop came over and was going to give me a five hundred dollar ticket. I started crying and you jumped up and said, “Can’t you see the poor woman’s suffered enough?” and he ended up not giving me a ticket.
Me: I forgot that. Happy Mother’s Day!
She’s distracted.
Mom: Oh! My water’s cold!
Me: Mom? Are you getting in the tub?
Mom: I was going to, but it’s all cold. I musta used up all the hot water…
Me: Okaaay…I’m gonna let you go. Goodnight.
Mom: Bye, love you.
Me: Love you, too. And, mom? Be careful, would you?

So there you have it. My mom is definitely a worse driver than your mom. For her sake, (and for all of us out on the road with her) I hope gas prices get a little higher. Anything to keep her off the road.

For more about my mom, check out my My Mom’s Funnier Than Your Mom series. But please, not while you are driving.

In the tradition of sharing really bad pictures of me I offer you this:

Yes, my hair does look better than in yesterday’s post; my mom had long since been banned from touching it. But even so, there is no getting around that this is an unflattering picture.
My mom is posing for the camera, though she forgot to put in her tooth. She is just happy to be holding my tiny Girl Wonder.
My sister and I are pee-your-pants laughing, probably at something our mom said.
She says funny hilarious things all the time. The problem is, she doesn’t mean to.
I’ve already blogged about the prosthetic/prostate mix-up.
Here are a few more in that vein:
Mom had been suffering from periodontal disease (hence the missing tooth in the photo) though at the time the ailment was referred to as pyria.
She made an appointment with a new dentist for a check-up. Midway through the exam, my mom interrupted him to ask, “Do I still have gonorrhea?”
What else could the poor man do other than to reply, “I can’t tell from here.”

And then there was the time when my mom spent the entire day at the genealogical library. She was doing something called “extractions”. I’m not exactly sure what that means, but I think it has to do with copying information from microfiche.
Anyway, when she got home she called her friend Judy. (We were always cracking up over Judy too because she often got as confused as my mom. Listening to them talk to each other was always entertaining.)
Here’s how the conversation went:
Judy: Hi Charlene. Where’ve you been all day? I’ve been trying to call you.
Mom: Oh! I just spent the whole day at the gynecologist. I’m tired.
Judy: What? Is everything okay.
Mom: Oh, yes. It was actually a wonderful experience, but I was there for seven hours. I even brought my own lunch.
Judy: Seven hours! What in the world were you doing?
Mom: Extractions.

Once my brother thought he was having a heart attack, but it turned out to be angina.
Can you guess what my mom told poor Judy?
Yup, you guessed it.
Judy said, “Well, to discover that he had one of those after all these years. No wonder it about gave him a heart attack.”

If you enjoyed these stories, be sure to read the check out my My Mom’s Funnier Than Your Mom series. I’m blogging funny stories about her all week.

When you are done, go see We Are THAT Family for more funny pictures that should never, ever be scrapbooked.

Check out my My Mom’s Funnier Than Your Mom series. I dare you to prove otherwise.

My mom’s fashion sense is, um… unique.
But, it hasn’t always been that way. Take a look at her here:

Stunning, isn’t she? With her adorable hair and pearls. Though you can’t see her clothes, I like to imagine she’s wearing a cute little dress and go go boots.
This is not just an idle thought. I have seen another photo of her taken around the same time period. She is sitting in an office with the other ladies in the secretarial pool. They are all wearing little sixties dresses and showing lots o’ leg. My mom claims that the photographer, a “dirty old man” talked them into it. If anyone can, my mom can sympathize with Miley.
By the time I came along, all of that glamor was ancient history.
When my parents married, they each had three children.
The Brady Bunch, The Brady Bunch, That’s the way we became the Brady Bunch…
Together they had three more.
John and Kate Plus Eight…er Nine?
In the “His, Mine, and Ours” scheme of things, I was number eight.
Eight is Enough (Sorry, James!)
I’ve got to stop watching Nick at Nite.
My Mom was only 32 when I was born but as they say, “it’s not the age, it’s the miles”. She was tired.
It could happen to anyone. I hope it never happens to me. But it could (shudder).
She started wearing polyester pants. With pantyhose.
It’s a wonder she didn’t die of heat stroke and dehydration.
And if that wasn’t bad enough, they were often pulled on in a sleepy stupor when one of us kids woke her on the day of the field trip and said, “I forgot but I have to have a bagged lunch today and all the other kids will have pop and if I don’t have pop or a fruit pie in my lunch they’ll all make fun of me and I’ll never go to school again so we have to go to the store right now!”
But it was never me. Must have been my brothers.
Anyway, Mom jumped out of bed and pulled on yesterday’s polyester, never noticing that it was inside out, nor that the wadded up pantyhose were stuck in her shoe and trailing along behind her, as she blearily perused the early morning hopping center.
She did notice that her children giggled and refused to walk next to her. But the little brats dears never told her why. It was up to her to discover on her own or, more often by a kindly stranger pointing it out.
Like all the times someone stopped her from entering the chapel at church with a “Charlene, your skirt is inside out/backwards/tucked into your pantyhose.” Sometimes all three.
Then my mom would turn red and run to the bathroom, where she would correct the error and laugh herself silly. That’s what I love about her.
Every person she saw that day would hear, “I’d just die if everyone knew what stupid thing I just did. I went to church/the store/my kids’ school/a doctor’s appointment with my…”
Mom, if you are reading: Everyone knew. You told them all.
When Mr. Frantic and I were dating he came over and noticed a little round table with an ugly unusual tablecloth on it. It was a print of a pastoral scene, complete with cows and little red barns. The tablecloth itself did not draw his eye, rather the fact that my mom removed it from the table and left the room. A few moments later she returned wearing it.
She proudly proclaimed, “Look, it’s a skirt, but it can also be used a tablecloth when I’m not wearing it!”
For some reason, he married into our family anyway.
I could go on and on
and on and on
and on about her fashion faux pas, but I think you get the idea.
And though I was often embarrassed, I’ve since learned that it is far more important what is in a person than what is on one.

Though that did not keep me from snatching an ugly hat off her head and throwing it into the fire.
I’ll tell you about it, in haiku form:

Mother’s Day Haiku

The ugly hat was
Quite unworthy of your head.
That’s why I took it.

For it was purple,
Cowboy style and chewed by dogs.
It needed to burn.

I threw your ugly
hat in the fire; you forgave
like you always do.

I bought you a new one.
Instead of anger, you laughed.
Oh how I love you.

Mother, your fashion
sense is not so great, but your
heart is amazing.

What crazy things did your mom wear?

PS: While you are here, don’t forget to enter the My Kid’s Mom Rocks Giveaway.