My mom is not my mother.
My real mother died young.
I have no memory of her.
I only remember my stepmother.
Who I called mom.
Because I knew no other.
They hid her from me.
My real mother.
So when I learned the truth.
The new truth.
That my mom.
Was not my real mother.
I have no memory of her.
Just the memories.
That my imagination makes.
When I see photographs.
Newspaper clippings.
Kidnapped. And never found.
Kidnapped by my father.
Like every other mother I’ve had.
Well, the ones I remember.
I loved them all.
My mother.
Tag: childhood
Glass Houses
People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
Visitors shouldn’t throw them, either.
In fact, nobody should be throwing stones around glass houses.
Are there glass houses? I’ve seen houses with outer walls of glass, but I’ve never seen a house made entirely of glass.
The furniture and carpeting’s not made of glass, right?
Maybe the clever scientists at Corning are working on that. If they can invent fiber optics, they can invent a glass house.
And it would be shatter-resistant too.
Unlike that window you broke playing baseball in the yard.
That’s coming out of your allowance, Bobby.
The Voices In Sally’s Head
Sally hears voices in her head.
But instead of telling her to go wild, set fires and kill people, they tell her to go straight home and clean her room.
They even help her with her Chemistry homework.
“Boyle’s Law is pressure times volume equals a constant,” says a voice. “It’s Charles’ Law that involves temperature.”
Sally smiles, puts down the Chemistry book, and moves over to Physics.
Oh, sure… eventually they told her to burn down the school and kill her classmates.
Then they told her to go home and clean her room.
The cops didn’t find any evidence.
A Bunch Of Babies
Our country’s compulsory military service begins at birth.
The infantry is literally made up of infants.
And the air force’s recruits spend their days fed by spoon while drill sergeants shout HERE COMES THE AIRPLANE INTO THE HANGAR! ZOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
Oh, and the navy spends its time in the wading pool on the lawn, splashing around and squealing.
Sure, they have issues marching and holding rifles and maintaining advanced radar-jamming equipment, and then there’s the discipline issues with “the terrible twos,” but all in all, they’re a good bunch.
Oh, and our large arsenal of tactical nuclear weapons. Those help too.
The Judges Demand
The fear holds me tight.
The judge demands an answer, but I have none.
I take the Swiss Army Tool from my pocket, flick out the sharpest blade, and draw it cross my left palm.
It doesn’t take long for enough blood to well up, and I quickly draw a circle around my feet.
“O Great Ancestors!” I shout. “Guide me through this moment of peril!”
The dust begins to swirl… the lights grow dark… a rumbling from the skies…
“DISQUALIFIED!” shouts the judge.
The dust settles, the lights come back up.
“Next contestant: Zymurgy.”
And they spell it right.
Born into the theater
I was born into the theater.
Literally. My mother, the famous actress, scored a year-long run in Oklahoma! via that infamous casting couch.
Nine months in, she still refused to give up the spotlight to her understudy.
The costume girl eventually went insane.
During the matinee, her water broke in Act 2, but she didn’t miss a line.
She concealed contractions with howls of laughter and screams of joy.
The curtain fell, I was born, and she was holding me to her breast through four curtain calls.
If you think that’s bad, that bastard director added it to the script!
Switched
Every so often, you hear about a “Switched At Birth” story in the news where two couples get each other’s babies by mistake.
Usually that gets cleared up with DNA testing, or an out-of-court settlement with the hospital.
However, there was one instance I heard of where a baby was accidentally switched with a janitor’s mop.
The happy couple was a bit concerned that their bundle of joy didn’t cry or eat, but they appreciated being able to sleep through the night without interruption.
The janitor filed a grievance with management because the baby didn’t clean floors all that well.
Deli
When I was little, I was impressed with the variety of meats and cheeses behind the glass at the deli counter in the grocery store.
My mother would make her selections and the attendant would heave up huge chubs to the slicer, where they’d slide across the whirling blade, leaving a stack of whatever to be weighed and wrapped.
Now, pretty much everything is pre-sliced and packaged for sale, but now and then I insist on going to the counter in the hopes they’ll accidentally hack their hand off.
Because nobody ever posts videos of that happening at the factory.
Whelm
I see the word overwhelm all the time.
And I see the word underwhelm all the time.
But I never see the word whelm.
Is there even such a word? If there is, is it just a word that exists to stick prefixes and suffixes on?
If I ever have a kid, boy or girl, I’m going to name them that. Because with all the goddamned Jennifers and Chrises and Williams, they’ll stand out from the rest.
Of course, I can’t have kids.
And there’s no fucking way I’ll name a cat Whelm. That’s a stupid name for a cat!
Grandchildren
Over and over, politicians keep saying that if we continue deficit spending and piling up debt, we’ll be leaving this financial burden to our grandchildren.
I always laugh, because I don’t have children, so I’ll never have grandchildren.
What do I care if we pile up mountains of debt, right?
That’s when I heard a knock on the door.
Through the peephole, I saw a crowd of children with torches and pitchforks.
I turned out the lights, barred the door, and got out the shotgun.
So what if they’re shouting “Trick Or Treat!” It’s all a trick!
Call the police!