It's time once again for another thrilling installment of: "MEAN THINGS
DEREK & I DID TO MOM WHEN WE WERE YOUNGER."

Mom doesn't realize when she's being funny (see "Way to go Asshole" on
Derek's blog) but she also doesn't realize when she's giving us fuel to use against
her in some way sometime in the future. She told us once that when she was
little and she was going to sleep, she used to fantasize about floating down a
river of fruit. A RIVER OF FRUIT?? When I was little I had going-to-sleep
fantasies that either Matthew Broderick or Harrison Ford would come sweep me
away! What sounds more fun? Anyway...

One of the things she mentioned in her sleeping story was that in the summer
she would have her bedroom window open and since they lived out in the country
it was very quiet at night. So quiet in fact that she could hear the bugs
buzzing. She said they made a sound like people screaming at a carnival that
was way far away in the distance. "You know, like people on a roller coaster
and they screeeeaaaam? The bugs sounded like that."

Well, of course, Derek & I thought this was funny! Weird and funny. We
immediately started teasing her about "Carnival Bugs." And plotting...we were
always plotting...

I had in my possession at the time The Lost Boys Soundtrack. There is a
song on there entitled "To the Shock of Miss Louise" by Thomas Newman. It's an
instrumental that sounds as if it's being played on a carousel and a carnival.
The perfect song for our plot. We had a duel cassette recorder so we looped
the song onto a tape then set the recorder on the dining room table behind the
pitcher & bowl set Mom had on there. When she came home from work and got
all settled in the living room, reading the paper, I went in and hit 'play,'
keeping the volume just low enough to make her wonder whether or not she was
really hearing it.

Derek and I sat in the living room, doing an Oscar-worthy performance of
keeping straight faces while the music played. Suddenly her head perked up and
she asked if we heard something. "No...hear what," we asked in all innocence.

"I don't know...it sounds like music. Carnival music."

"Carnival music? Like maybe it's coming from Carnival Bugs?" She looked
sharply at us and we couldn't do it anymore. We broke down and showed her the
radio, admitting that she's just an easy mark.

And to our great joy, she still hasn't learned to not tell us things that
cause us to tease her! She's such a great mom!


|