Friday, May 9, 2008

Mom's Day

The third and final Blogonator Superfan is my mom, Andrea. This photo was taken in 1974 when she was....five years old.




When I was 7 or 8 I went to Party City with my mom to get some supplies for my brother Cody's birthday party. Bored, and perhaps jealous of all of the goodies we were getting to pick up for him, I found myself wandering over to the balloon aisle. They were lined all along the shelves in the most beautiful latex rainbow and my senses were totally overwhelmed by how appealing it was. I found two colors that I really liked. Hear me citizen: TWO PLAIN COLORED LATEX BALLOONS, PROBABLY TOTALING $0.50 IN ALL. I asked my mom "Mommy, can you please get me these balloons?" and she said....

No. Put them back.

And at that moment these are the exact words that went through my brain: That's ok because I'm going to take them.

And rather than draw attention to myself by stuffing said balloons in my pockets I curled my hand into a tight fist over them and held on until we got to the car. Success. On the ride home I tucked the loot right underneath my "tot-rider" booster seat and felt like motherfucking John Dillinger. Like a 100%, Class A Badass. But by the time we pulled into the garage at home I had completely forgotten all about the big heist. Got out of the car, went downstairs to my room and did whatever it was I was doing those days.

Unfortunately for me, my mom decided to clean her car out that very same day. Maybe 2 hours after we got home she came downstairs holding my balloons and demanding answers.
What happened after that is a blur. All I know is that the words "You are going to return these and tell them what you did" were uttered and that would, of course, suck.
But time went by. She didn't mention it for a long time. And then one day she did.

The two mile drive felt like an eternity...I went in and handed the girl behind the counter the god damn balloons and I can remember the look on her face being one of total discomfort. I mumbled: "Um...I stole these and...I want to return them."

When we looked back on the episode for the first time several years later my mom said "Well, what you don't know is that I called Party City right before we left and told them you'd be coming!"



Mom's Favorite Schumanator Entry to Date: "See what I put up with"
Mom's Best Blog Comment to Date: Boy, your blog is just bitter.