Mommy with a Penis

Strange set of circumstances... In mid October, Michael asked me if we were going to the Bay Area for Foster Thanksgiving. He was hounding me for a while before I finally relented and called Mother. She seemed flabbergasted that we would even consider spending time with the family. Odd, since I've become the why not? family guy. Here's the skinny... When I was a kid, Aunt Pat cooked the family Thanksgiving dinner, and this year she announced that she is retiring, hanging up her apron. She extended invites to just family: children, nieces, nephews (of which I am one), second husbands, first wives (Mother), steps, halves and offspring, which totals somewhere in the seventies, maybe eighties. This would be my last chance to revisit the Thanksgiving of my youth. Forty-eight accepted the invite, however Mother turned mine down...without consulting me. Why? There is no satisfactory answer. As she admitted her huge gaffe over the phone, I could practically hear egg ooze down her face...

This spring, out of the blue, my stepmother sent me a tropical plant. She's never sent me a plant before. I was suspicious. What if this plant lures me with it's intoxicating scent, and just as I bend close to take a whiff it shoots venomous spoors into my face, causing paralysis, halitosis and death. And then I wondered where did that Batman rerun come from? This happens from time to time. Television plot lines from my childhood zap into my head and for that fraction of a second, reality is completely skewed, my stepmother tries to off me with a deadly plant. But fear not, within milliseconds logical brain kicks back into high gear. Once again a thoughtful gift sent from Maui, and not an evil hybrid developed by Catwoman in her hidden lair. Attached to a chunk of hardened lava was a small anthurium. You know, those plants with glossy green leaves and a glossy red flower that has...oh, hell, I'll just say it...a long penis sticking out of it. There was one flower on the pl...

Okay. This is how it’s supposed to go. I get up at six forty. I clean the kitchen, start breakfast. Sebastian, my five year old, hears me clanking about, gets up around seven. At seven ten I call out to Michael, who’s impervious to alarm clocks and clanking about, "Breakfast is ready." Barely functioning, he gets our two year old and the four of us sit down to a healthy breakfast. Afterwards, Michael takes over. He gets Sebastian dressed and spruced, while I myself spruce and dress. Then I walk my kindergartner to school, just in time for the eight oh six bell. Which is really more of a blare. That, give or take, is our morning routine. But this morning was different. Oh, it started the same. Hit the snooze button twice. Up by six forty. Cleaned a couple of martini glasses and a shaker, started beating eggs. Seven o’clock rolls around. No Sebastian. Seven oh five. Seven ten. I open his bedroom door. "Time to get up, sleepyhead." And go back to George Foremaning sau...