As several of you have read before, when the kids leave for their weekend at their dad's house, I often take off immediately for the movie theater. Last weekend, I'd caught The Illusionist and then Lassie back to back, which I was happy to report were both slow but enjoyable enough, but the two bags of grease-laden popcorn that I ate, also back to back, got a great big "two thumbs down" from my stomach.
Do stomach's have thumbs? I'm getting off track.
So tonight, I applied the "everything in moderation" approach and only went to one movie and thus only consumed one oily bag of popcorn. The movie was Hollywoodland... I'm not recommending it if you're bored, because it'll only worsen the mood. Although, if you're really REALLY bored, perhaps it would seem exciting to you... like watching paint dry.
Now if that were it for my evening, I'd have nothing new to write here. But that wasn't the only event of my evening, no, of course not.
When I got out of the theater, I noticed that I had a couple of missed calls, all of them from my mother. When I listened to the message, she sounded like she had been crying or she was sick, and the message seemed to cut her off mid-sentence, so I really didn't know what to make of it. I called her back immediately, but got no answer. I called a couple more times, because sometimes she doesn't recognize her own phone ringing (it rings with music and she keeps thinking it should ring like a phone, but she thinks that the traditional phone ring setting is annoying). She never answered, so I just figured that it wasn't that important.
I drove home and when I turned onto my street, there were a dozen or so cars parked all over the cul-de-sac as if someone was having a party... and just as quickly, I spotted that someone was parked in my driveway, which pissed me off for a second... until I realized it was my mother's car.
Since it was about 10:00, I thought it was weird that my mother would just be stopping by. Perhaps she'd been out shopping and found something she wanted to decorate my house with and just stopped over while I wasn't there and went inside to install whatever whatchamacallit she bought? That's what I was thinking as I opened my car door... and then I saw what was inside the car.
"Mom?" I tapped on the windshield to get her attention. She was sitting in her car, seat fully reclined, and completely unconscious. I instantly thought she might be sick or something. She groggily looked up at me and replied, "Yeah, what?" ...like it's normal to find your mother napping in your driveway on a Friday night.
I went around to her driverside door and opened it. That's when I was hit with the wall of alcohol odor. It just got more loony tunes from there:
"You're totally wasted."
"No, I'm not. Why would you say that? I'm just tired."
"I can smell the liquor from here."
"You can't smell anything. It's vodka... *giggle*."
"Whatever. Why are you sleeping in my driveway?"
"I got mad at Mike and decided to come over here."
"If you're not drunk, then why didn't you answer your phone when I called you several times?"
"I must not have brought it with me."
At this point, I pulled out my cell phone and dialed her. She's watching me hold my phone and call her, and her phone rings right next to her, of course. She says, "Oh, that must be Mike calling me."
"No, mom. It's me seeing if you've got your phone on you."
"No, it's Mike. I've gotta go home."
"No, you're not going anywhere. You're in no condition to drive. Come inside and you can take a nap in my bed."
While she was protesting, she was getting out and following me up into my house. She walked upstairs to my bedroom, muttering something to herself. I went up there after I let my dogs out and she seemed to be fast asleep already. I turned off the lights and got on my computer to see what messages I had.
Suddenly, from upstairs, I hear a big "THUNK!" like someone hitting the floor. I figured she just needed to run to the toilet and puke, so I didn't bother to go check. Next thing, I hear my dogs barking and the front door getting pulled shut. I went outside in time to see my mom closing the door of her car and about to drive away.
"What are you doing?" I yelled.
"I'm going home. I can't sleep here. Everything smells different."
"How can you smell anything over all that vodka? You're in no shape to be driving. Get out and come back inside now."
"Nope," as she started the car and put it in reverse. "Going home."
This conversation was going on through her window, because she locked herself in and wouldn't let me get at her to take her keys away. All I could do was beg her to be careful and at the very least not hit the cars that were parked right across from my driveway. She gave a last, "I'm fuh-ine," then backed out of the driveway... well, backed out into my lawn, I should say. Then she drove off.
I called her boyfriend and told him she was driving back and if she wasn't back in 15 minutes, he needed to call me. He slurred back at me, "Okay, I'll call you back."
A few minutes later, he was calling me to tell me that she made it. Actually, he just let me say hello when I answered, said hello back, then sat there saying nothing else... just waiting... this was because he apparently thought I called him. I had to say, "Is she there?" To which he answered, "Yeah, she's just pulling in now. You called at the exact moment."
Uh huh.
When I was going through my divorce 7 years ago, I bought a t-shirt that says, "This is not the life I ordered," thinking that I'd show a little humor towards cruel fate... laugh off the pain. Now I think that dumb shirt could be tempting fate and just perpetuating the circumstances. I think I'm going to ceremonially burn that blasted thing tomorrow.
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