Photo by Keren Fedida on Unsplash
We canceled mom because she’d become a human lie detector test. We haven’t found anyone to replace her yet. Dad can’t cook. We’re all lazy. The dog’s hiding because she knows, that we all know, that she can whip up a mean old piece of stale bread, chips from beneath the couch cushions, and an old bone. The rest of us are useless.
But, IT HAD TO BE DONE! Mom kept asking, “What happened at school today?” And she wouldn’t accept our half-truths that most parents don’t bat an eye at. Not mom, who thinks she’s a detective, looking for clues, planting them when necessary.
Like when I told her I didn’t have a science test, she said, “Bullshit. Your science teacher called. You failed.” Teachers don’t call people. They just send home F’s. Was mom having me followed? Was she banging the science teacher to get the latest scoop? What was her agenda?
When Jack told mom that he didn’t grab Mary Louise Johnson's crotch behind the bleachers, she pulled out the nanny cam she’d sewn into his backpack. We all had to watch Jack’s PG porn movie at dinner. It was so gross. Jack’s a real perv. He couldn’t walk through the school hallways or lunchroom without grabbing some girl’s boobs or vag with his meaty little hands.
When Cynthia told mom she hadn’t started a Keeping it Pure Club, mom pulled out a flier. Cynthia told mom she was talking about keeping laundry all white, like Clorox bleach or a Tide stick. She insisted mom should be proud of her for wanting everything so bright and fresh.
But mom, being the psycho sleuth that she is, had already highlighted parts of the flier that said things like No blacks. Mom said Blacks needed to be capitalized. She said, “Cynthia, it’s bad enough to be a racist. It’s ten times worse to entirely ignore a culture’s shared belief system and history by refusing to capitalize the letter B.”
Meanwhile, while mom was cleaning up and giving us all the third degree, she found a couple of ticket stubs for Southwest Airlines for dad and our babysitter, in the kitchen trash can. Susie Bell looks like a grownup, but mom says she’s only 16.
When dad came home from work, he claimed he had taken Susie Bell to a Babysitting Training Conference in Vegas. Then mom, who thinks she’s the judge, jury, and executioner, stabbed dad with a spoon. Luckily, Jack set the silverware in the wrong places, or dad would be a goner.
Anyway, we canceled mom from making dinner, cleaning up, packing our lunches, from everything. There’s no way we’re having someone like her wait on us hand and foot. She’s cancelled.
Unfortunately, we’re all a bunch of barely functional morons, so we’re hoping mom learns her lesson and begs for her job back. The bad news is I just saw mom drive away in the Suburban with suitcases tied down to the roof, but she’ll be back. Who’d run away from this party? I mean family.