Whenever I make a major decision, one of the questions I ask myself is “Will this piss off my mom?†Not that when the answer to that question is “yes,†it will necessarily motivate me to abstain from an action, but it is a determining factor in the amount of discretion I use during and afterwards.
I’ve used the “Will this piss off Mom?†decision-making method for as long as I can remember. I vividly recall using it after my younger brother popped the heads off of my Barbies. I asked myself, “Will it piss off Mommy if I slap the hell out of Mike?†I knew the answer would be “yes,†so I waited until she wasn’t in the room and gave him the wallop he deserved. And of course, she was pissed, but not nearly as pissed as she would have been had I walloped him right in front of her.
“Will Mom be pissed if I go out on a school night, drink shots of Tequila, and stay the night with my boyfriend?†Of course she would be, but that’s why God invented dormitories and schools far away from home—so Mom’s wouldn’t have to be so pissed off.
Though many people may ask themselves “What would Jesus do,†I’ve never found that decision-making strategy to work for me. First of all, Jesus’ mom was the Blessed Mother. I can’t imagine the Blessed Mother pacing the floors, yelling and threatening to beat the hell out of Jesus if he said one more smart word or did one more stupid thing. I imagine the Blessed Mother would say something like, “You know I’m going to have to tell your Father.†And then maybe, if he had even a sarcastic bone in his body, Jesus might say something like, “Well, he already knows. He knew me before I was born.†Or he might pop off with a “Who do you think I’m a manifestation of?†Regardless of what he said, I’m sure he wouldn’t have ended up dodging a swat or just praying to himself that he didn’t get grounded so he couldn’t go out and do it (what it was) again the next weekend.
Before I go any further, I want to make it clear that my mom is not a mean, evil person, just waiting for one of her kids to screw up so she can blow her top. However, she has set high behavior standards for her children, and she expects all of us to live up to them. She brings to the table a solid 1950’s upper-middle class upbringing, as well as a few ideas she picked up from a cave wall. Nevertheless, she’s my mom—the only one I’ll ever have—and I do try to make her happy.
Though I don’t care for conflict of any kind, she doesn’t seem to mind it. She’ll stare conflict right in the face and go for its jugular. She’s quick to tell one of her own children when she doesn’t agree with the parenting of her grandchildren. And she was quick to try to straighten out her own mother on any occasion she saw fit. Sadly enough, her own mother, my last living grandparent, passed away this past summer.
A few weeks after she died, I helped my mom work the estate sale. Strangers were pouring into my grandmother’s house, touching her belongings, and looking for a bargain among her treasures. As I carried boxes of household goods and sewing remnants to the driveway, I reminisced about all the things that my grandmother had done. I also reminisced about the hell my mom had raised after some of those events. Regardless of all the words exchanged over what she’d done and what she’d failed to do, here in the middle of her driveway lay the souvenirs of her life. She was in the ground and her stuff was being picked through by total strangers.
Then I thought about Phyllis. Phyllis, a charming lady, is the wife of a city council member and a university professor. That’s nearly all I know about her, because I only met her briefly at my grandmother’s funeral. She was sporting a small tribal tattoo on her wrist. My aunt, a long time friend of Phyllis, pointed it out to me, and the two of them laughed about it. The tattoo was a gift to herself for her 60th birthday. While I’d considered a tattoo on my hip, I’d never followed through with it, mainly because I knew that no one would ever see it, and if my mom found out she would just be pissed.
Standing in the driveway, I realized that it didn’t matter who got pissed about what. Someday, it will be my stuff scattered out in the driveway. Strangers will be haggling with my daughters over worldly possessions, and I’ll be cold in the ground.
That Friday evening, I hitched a ride with my youngest daughter, got a manicure and pedicure, and then went to Tattoo Charlie’s. After a short wait, I met with an artist who tattooed a chain of three pink daisies across my left wrist. In the middle of the procedure, I said, “My mom is going to be so pissed.†He said, “Yeah. All moms get pissed about tattoos. My own mom gets pissed whenever I get a new one.†Judging by this guy’s arms, his mom has thrown her share of fits.
A week later, my mom noticed my new body art. I was right. She was pissed. However, it was a mellowed out, been-put-through-the-mill pissed off. Instead of raising the roof, she asked, “What possessed you to do such a thing?†I said, “Do you really want to know the whole story? It’s kind of interesting.†“No, not really,†she replied.
Mom still doesn’t know why I have a tattoo. She may never know. But I know, and I don’t care who gets pissed about it.