Tomatoes are trouble. Big trouble. Especially when mailed in a box that doesn’t arrive at it’s destination.
So my mother decided at some point in her swirling process of thought, that sending my sister a big box of stuff was a good idea. I suppose that this concept is rather benign since it’s done every day by millions of Americans. When my mother is involved in the process though, be assurred that there is nothing that will remain untainted by her presense.
Case in point: The Big Box.
I can’t say exactly how many items that she had predetermined would make the trip to Maryland in said box. Never having seen the actual box, I imagine it to be a huge wooden crate, with or without holes depending on what kind of mood Mother was in that day. I imagine the crate with holes and mysterious sounds coming from the inside.
Most likely it contained some possessions of my sisters that she had forgotten about. My mother seems to like shipping things in tiny increments. She would be the one in the army who would mail a jeep home one piece at a time. This particular box was sent and it wasn’t until a few days later that Mother inquired about it’s arrival.
-Of course- this is like the plot of a bad movie and we have all guessed that it didn’t arrive after those few days. In fact, it was pushing a week and still no box. This is when our mother decided to share the information of the tomatoes being in the box and when the scenarios started to pop into the brains of my sister and I.
I was the first one to be hit by a vision. And my sister jumped in with both feet.
What if the package got shoved in a corner somewhere and the tomatoes have gone bad? Someone would observe the ‘leakage’. The box would be quarantined. Of course the FBI and Homeland Security would be called in. It would have to be investigated. _That_ would be the awesome part, yeah?
The horrifying part would come _after_ the rotten tomatoes were discovered to be exactly that. This wouldn’t lessen the blow of the seriousness of the situation. That damn box still would have created a panic. Only now it would become a wave of panic seasoned with a healthy dose of stupidity. And it would all belong to my sister and I.
And we just knew that it would unfold on MSNBC or CNN. Pretty soon the media would be shoving microphones in everyone’s faces and asking if they thought that she was capable of this? I don’t know what other people would have said. All of the people she knows from bingo are half blind and mentally fatigued from trying to keep up with all those bingo cards they buy. Probably something like, ’she wasn’t the kind of person who would do that kind of thing’.
I DO know what my sister and I would say. ‘She’s _exactly_ the kind of a person who would do that sort of thing and she will do it again as soon as you all go home!’ Seriously!
Our Father, who art in oblivion, of course, would answer the front door in his briefs and wife-beater under shirt and have a blank look on his face for all of the news crews and various photographers with nothing better to do that day then follow up on a housewife turned terrorist and her completely clueless husband. After the husband got dressed, he’d agree to talk to the press. He doesn’t really know any better.
Of course, my sister and I would be praying for him to have a lucid moment and at least get the facts right or – best case senario – insist that he knows nothing. Sadly, that would never happen since rarely do any rational thoughts have enough buoyancy to float to his conscious stream of thought. He would just blink at all of the questions and that blank look. ”Yeah. I told her not to put the frigging tomatoes in. But does she listen?” No. She never listens.
Next, mother will be hauled off: Destination – The Big House. Sigh. My sister and I have pangs of sorrow for her fellow inmates. She’d arrive with her orange jumpsuit, sneakers, and various State supplied articles folded neatly across her forearms, take one look around and then declare that she wasn’t staying here. And if she did, ’someone’ would have to go and get her lottery tickets.
Oh yeah. Mother would be a wondrous site for the Big House to behold. Naturally, someone would try to make her their Bitch. But, after exactly 37 minutes of trying they would walk away, go back to their cell, and spend the rest of their ‘time’ exhibiting above average good behavior just to get away from ‘Ma Bowker’. She has a way of making an impression upon people, the Darling.
The best, most amazing part comes next: The Trial!!! It would be broadcast on Court TV, CNN, MSNBC, and Fox at the same time. And it would be glorious!!! Mother would sit at the defendants table just like on all the crime shows that she watches. At first she’d be upset and crying. Quickly, though, her tears would turn into a scowl and she would start saying things under her breath. Not very nice things at that. Down right inflammatory things which would require a Judge to utilize his or her dreaded gavel. And my sister and I would know what would come next: ”Shut the hell up you damn fool. Stop banging that ‘gravel’, or I’ll shove it up your….(you get the idea, right?).”
Oh, of course the Judge would threaten contempt of court and all that. But really, after spending any time at all with my mother would cause you to either lose your mind completely or develop defense mechanisms to deal with her. Most people close to her opt for the second. Although there -have- been people who succumb to the first option.
Sad really. Such a waste.
