09-05-2002 - 11:41 a.m. - she's not an alcoholic, fig-uratively speaking

last night my mother decided to have her own little cocktail party-of-one with me as her witness. I enjoyed some cheese stuffed spanish olives with french bread, while she enjoyed glass after glass of cognac.

by the end of her meg ryan movie of choice, she was sloshed and begging me to let her cut my hair.

"come on, pleeeashe?"

"no. no way."

"I shwear I'm reeeally good at it. one time in the 70's my friend rhonda cut my bangsh while she was shtoned, and it didn't look that bad."

"nope, don't think so."

"but you're practically bald, christina! it's not like it would matter that much if I did a crappy job!!"

"mom, you're not cutting my hair, not even when you're sober."

"you're no fun! *hiccup*"

later on we somehow got on the subject of babies, and she decided to tell the tale of the time my little brother had a hernia in his infancy.

"chrishtina, have you seen ballsh?"

"what?!"

"you know. nutsh."

"oh god, MO-OM!"

"well, a normal nutsac looks a lot like--" she started searching frantically for an object nearby with a resemblance to a scrotum. she ended up grabbing a basket of fake fruit from the coffee table, and passed on a pomegranite festooned with red plastic beads, a green apple and a pear. finally she settled on a shriveled purple fig. holding it up she slurred,

"a lot like this!! see it's like this little baggy you know, without the shtem! anyway, his looked like a fig with elephantitis. like a water balloon, you could shay!" she tossed the fig back into the cornucopia of violated fruit.

"mom, really, I DON'T NEED TO KNOW!!"

"christina, it's just ballsh! haha, bet you'll never look at figs the same way again!"

she continued with her story, as my ears burned and I vowed never to give my future children anatomy lessons with plastic produce.