The Scary Side

The other night I was sitting with my friend in the Flamingo Lounge, aka her family room. We were recounting our day. Mine basically boiled down to a couple of episodes where I wanted to scream, "Move aside incompetent people! I will handle this."

She calmly said, "That's your scary side."

I come by this honestly. Everyone is afraid of my mother. (Some of her friends pretend like they're not but they're not fooling me.) Even my goldies -- my friends who have known her since our childhood -- are still afraid of her. They tread softly. A wise choice. My father who was struck with the thunderbolt, freakish, out-of-this-world love potion of adoration for her knows when to clam up and move on.

I must admit she is still capable of scaring me with a look. I think all parenting skills should be modeled on the Boy Scouts/Girl Scouts. The scary look is a badge to earn.

We celebrated her birthday earlier this week. Then we had a minor health scare. In the heat of the moment, I forgot to keep my cool and my scary side came out. I believe I said something like, "Please stop doing your hair because when you're dead, they have people at the funeral home who take care of that."

Happy birthday to my scary mom and genuine thanks for the DNA.