Note to Self: Don’t Laugh at Mom

People will do strange things when they are scared or startled.  Things that are way out of ordinary for their personality, things that will make you shake your head….or in my case, duck!

I will start this with the statement that my parents were not abusive.  They believed in consequences’ for our actions (check out: I Yelled Ugly Names at Her the Whole Time), which in the case of young boys like my brother and I….usually included a spanking!  I only got one I didn’t deserve (check out:  The Only Spanking I Didn’t Deserve), but I think I more than made up for it by all the things I did get away with!

When we moved from the place on Highway 350, in La Junta Colorado, Dad had already gone on to a new job.  So, us kids and Mom packed everything and did most of the move.  There was whole lot of boxes and, in the spirit of moving, some crabby attitudes.  Now, I’ll be honest, I was pretty crabby about the whole move.  We were moving away from everyone I grew up with and I was not happy about that at all!  You know, those crazy/ mouthy teenage years…I always had some sort of back talk going and invariably, it got me into trouble.  We have always joked about the great American adventure…moving!  It draws families closer….yada, yada, yada!   As a family, we probably fought more when we were moving than at any other time…and that’s saying a lot (Cully and I were close to the same age and as we got into our teenage years, there were some epic fights…might have to write about some of those some time!)  This story is about a poor choice on my part.

I was helping Mom, and by helping I mean I was griping and complaining, pack blankets.  She was standing on a chair, pulling blankets from a closet shelf and stacking them in my arms.  I’m fairly certain that my mouth was in gear, I was probably 15 or so, there was no shortage of my mouth!  So added to the fact that we were all already on edge with the moving, but now a smart alecky teenage boy who thought he was smarter, bigger, stronger, etc.  Looking back this was a disaster waiting to happen on my part!  Anyway, after about the 5^th or 6^th blanket, lo and be hold….a mouse ran down Mom’s arm!  There wasn’t much Mom was afraid of, but I think if there was a list…mice might have been at the top of  it!   She hollered and liked to have killed us both trying to get off that chair and out of the closet! 

At this point I would like to mention that I’m not stupid, but looking back…my intelligence sure could have been called into question! 

As she was scrambling around trying to get away from that tiny little mouse, who was doing his darnest trying to get away from her, I started laughing at her!   Being in a state of panic and a little angry that she was scared of this mouse, she just didn’t see the humor in the whole situation and that should have been a big caution sign for me!  As she tumbled out of the closet, she started swinging at me!  I was a pretty big kid, so I blocked the first couple of swings with the blankets I had in my arms…that just made the situation worse!  At this point I had the thought that blocking all these swings was pretty dumb….I dropped my arms to let her swing at me a couple of times, but by then she was running out of steam so she had stopped swinging.  I was still laughing, but now brains had kicked in a little and I left the room!  It took her a little while to get over the mad, but she said she finally saw the humor in it.  Although I suspect that she realized she couldn’t kill me and get away with it, so she might as well laugh about it! 

We all laugh about this now, but at the time…laughing was a bad choice!  I took this pearl if wisdom from the whole situation:

If a mouse runs down Mom’s arm, don’t laugh and if you are going to laugh…..be prepared to duck!