I am not a "sports mom." My children's great triumphs have often come in the Arts.
I specifically recall one summer evening entering an arts camp show and being drawn to one painting lying there amongst the others. It was vivid and lovely, and in a moment of greed I really wanted that one to be my kid's piece. As he paraded me past the works, looking for his, I let go of my foolish envy and prepared myself to fully embrace my son's creative accomplishment.
"Oh, here it is," he said. He held up The One that had called to me from across the room. It was his. I told him what had just gone through my mind and we shared a good laugh over the fact that, like the cry of a newborn, sometimes a mom just knows.
Everyone has at least one mom, whether they happen to know her or not, and I began to feel that in last night's debate, the audience was playing stand-in for that role. Granted, there were "favorites" among the boisterous brood of eight just as sure as there was estrangement.
So here in a fictional account of an actual event--or in a horribly pained analogy--is my take on the family affair that was the CNN/Tea Party Debate.
"Mother always liked you best," Hermie, Jonny, Newty, Ronnie, Mitty, and Ricky-S said to Ricky-P and 'Chelie.
Little Jonny stepped forward, "And I can't do anything right! She hates everything I say. And when I try to make a joke, she never laughs."
"Don't blame us for your crappy jokes," Ricky-P added.
Then they all turned on 'Chelie: "You're lucky you're a girl!"
Their mom--"Tampa-Tea"--sat watching their spats. First it was little Mitty going after Ricky-P. It was a classic case of he-said/he-said, or at times, he-wrote/he-wrote. They argued over who won the Jobs Game, who loved Mommie most with hugs and Social Security, and who had the extra deck in their last game of Texas Hold 'Em. Then smaller arguments broke out among the others. When mom told them to be quiet (with her applause), little Newty complained that Mommie was taking away from his play time.
You see they have this playset out back which they've nicknamed The Federal Government. Newt thought it should be "modernized"--the older kids always want more after all. Mitty thought that just cleaning it would help, but would not be enough to fix it. 'Chelie felt that each kid should only clean up or fix the parts that they had broken--that the entire Federal Government should not be owned together but broken into little individual chunks. Ricky-P said that each kid was a State and that each State should clean up or fix its own section. At that point Mommie's favorites shared a conspiratorial wink. Little Ronnie said he was Department of Energy tired and just did not want to go to school (Department of Education) ever!
Since they couldn't all agree about The Federal Government--apart from the fact that it was broken and bad--they turned their attention to trying to out-do one another on cutting Mommie's taxes and finding a job for Daddy. Ricky-P called his plan "Texas"--which is an anagram for taxes--and little Jonny called his plan "Utah"--which is an anagram for the sound you make when you spit. Then the neighbor kid, Bennie Bernanke, came over and Mommie had her young'uns try him for treason. 'Chelie, who had a different idea of how to deal with Bennie, said: Let's "put a tight leash on "The Fed" (that's Bennie's nickname) that makes it squeak!" You can tell she was raised defending herself against seven brothers.
Poor Jonny, when faced with a simple question from Mommie, did not give a direct answer. He rambled on when she wanted to know how much of each of her dollars he thought should go to The Federal Government. In the words of the Prophet Chris Stevens, Jonny was "asked for the time and instead taught her how to build a watch." Newt stepped into the fray with "I'm cheerfully opposed to raising taxes" which made Mommie smile again. But little Mitty couldn't leave well enough alone: "I'm in favor of the Fair Tax." Mommie spanked him fiercely.
Then it was time to take their medicine. That's when Ricky-P and 'Chelie really got into it. You see, Ricky-P likes the medicine--he calls it HPV--and 'Chelie thinks it'll kill her. They argued over some kid "Merck" who had dared Ricky-P to the tune of $5,000 to sneak HPV into 'Chelie's food. Turns out it was actually $30,000, but Ricky-P said he didn't do it because of the dare, but because he loved his sister and wanted her to never get cervical cancer. Hermie said that taking your medicine (healthcare) should be organized amongst the eight of them according to who needed how much of a dose. But he went on to say that their arrangement would never work for the entire neighborhood. There was some discussion about whether or not the kids should have to save their own money to buy the medicine--not have Mommie's help--so that they would give more of a darn about how it tasted and how much it cost. When little Ronnie pointed out that some kids couldn't afford to buy their own medicine Mommie shouted to Let 'em die! which frightened the other families watching over the fence (TV). 'Chelie warned those folks that if they didn't go along with her family's (Party's) idea, the whole neighborhood would be renamed Socialism.
Then it got ugly. The kids began arguing about how to decide who gets to move into the neighborhood and who does not. Ricky-S, who had been observing for most of the arguments, reminded his family that they too had been new in the neighborhood once, and that letting new families in was good for the "life blood" of the neighborhood. Mommie was not pleased. Ricky-P complained that Mommie's fence wasn't strong enough to keep the other kids out of his part of the playset, Texas, and that he'd had to spend his own money to plug up the holes. He didn't think Mommie should tell him how Texas should be run but he sure wanted her help with that fence! He only vexed her more when he seemed to side with Ricky-S saying, "It shouldn't matter what your last name sounds like." Yes, Mommie said loudly, it did. So the two Rickys set about racing to the bottom of Mommie's favor: "P let's the new kids go to school like they've been here as long as we have!" Ricky-P defended himself with: "Yeah, but I make 'em learn our games, talk like we do, live in their house for three years, and join the Homeowners' Association!" To which Ricky-S retorted that P wouldn't know a melting pot from a salad bowl. Again, 'Chelie had a different approach. She wanted the new families to be invited into the neighborhood in something she called the Sponsorship of the 1960s (that's their house number, I guess). At least one observer, Susan, thought that sounded like indentured servitude. Entirely off-key again--they think his voice is changing--Jonny said that not fixing the fence was treasonous. Mommie made him get a switch in order to, in the words of the Prophet Richard Pryor, "beat his own ass."
Hermie wanted to talk about EPA, a girl who always pees in the kiddie pool. He thought that if EPA was to be reformed that those who had been in the kiddie pool while she had peed should be the ones to do the reforming (butt kicking). He wanted to do the same for all the other places where she'd peed (agencies).
But no one was having that discussion. They wanted to talk about bullies. Ronnie tried to explain to the kids that if they even seemed to be mistreating another kid that kid might think they were bullies and retaliate. Mommie stepped in right then and sent him to his room--where she hoped to release a noxious gas through the vents. Ricky-S piled on, calling his absent brother a "parrot of OBL." (OBL is a nasty kid who just moved out of the neighborhood. He now lives at the bottom of the sea.) Jonny thought that the kids shouldn't build clubhouses for the bullies to please them that he needed his own clubhouse right here. From the upstairs window, not having been gassed yet, Ronnie shouted out that religious intolerance was to blame for most bullying. Mommie made all seven kids uproot an entire tree with which to beat Ronnie's ass. (No one has seen Ronnie lately, by the way.)
Then Mommie asked what they wanted Santa to bring to their little White House for Christmas: Ronnie-S wanted a new bedroom, Newty wanted to trade in his toy Czars for music and ballet lessons and a chess set, between the whacks with the giant tree, Ronnie said that if he was around at Christmas he wanted nothing fancy, just the run-of-the-mill common sense they sold down at the corner store. Ricky-P wanted a beautiful First Lady, and Mitty wanted some alien toy no one had ever heard of, a Churchill Bust. (Mommie hoped it was a special poker set, but Ricky-P had already warned Mitty that he was no good at poker.) 'Chelie asked for reading materials so that she would always have the bills to be right, the constitution to eat whatever she chose, and the declaration that she had independence. (Again, seven boys.) Hermie wanted everyone to laugh, and Jonny wanted both a Harley and a motocross bike. (Yeah kid, fat chance.)
All in all the kids do get along; neighbor Susan thinks that Ricky-P and Mitty secretly really like each other a lot. That they might even pool their tickets the next time they find themselves at the Florida State Fair. Mommie is worrisome, though. She's awfully hard on the kids--kind of a stage mom type. Or maybe the kind of parent who fights the coach (moderator) to get her kid more playing time. Sometimes she got so mad you didn't know what she might be in favor of doing.
I hope the kids sort out their differences before they have their big argument with little Barry who lives on the left side of town. He's an only child who has never had to fight for attention. He gets to speak whenever he wants, eats seconds, and has the best playset in the whole universe. He even has his own life-sized toy jets, helicopters, and limos. He has his friends over to his own private Rose Garden. There's a bowling alley in his basement. He's tough to beat.
The big fight is set for November 2012, and the kids have a lot of training to do before their bout. Here's hoping everyone gets in shape and does their strength training because all our Mommie's can use all the help they can get. The woman may get over-the-top sometimes, but she is raising all those kids with Daddy still out of work.
Besides, everyone enjoys a good fair fight...as long as the best man/woman/child wins.
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