My Mom, The Origin of Awesome

I have a really great relationship with my mom, which I think is because I'm just like my dad--which is to say, a total goofball and only quasi-logical on the best of days. I'd have to say that my mom likes my dad, since they've been married for longer than Flava-Flav has been nailing anything that walks, and so hanging out with me is just like hanging out with my dad, if he were into shoe shopping and talking about china patterns. For my mom, I'm just like my dad, if my dad were mugged by Queer Eye.

One of the things I admire about my mom is her ability to force anything, anytime, at any store on the globe, to be on sale. I'll go over to see her, and the first thing she'll say is, "oh, come see what I got today!" So we traipse up to the master bedroom, and she whips out a jacket that costs more than my house. "Look what I got for $17.92!" she giggles, waggling a silk-lined leather mortgage payment at my googly eyes.

I examine the conquest. "Holy crap, Mom, this is a $400 Marc Jacobs jacket! Who did you con into giving this to you for $17.92???" If it were anyone other than my mom in front of me, the question would be who did you blow to get this for $17.92?, but I prefer to keep matters a bit more kosher with the one who bore me in her vessel of life.

"Well," she gears up for her victorious epic. "I had a coupon for 25 percent off, so I went over to Macy's, and they happened to be having a 25 percent off sale on the whole store! Then I found the clearance rack, and everything there was 60 percent off that--"

(I swear to God, we're already at the point that the store is paying her to take the goods, but we press on.)

"--and I found this fabulous jacket! And when I went to the register, and this is the funniest thing, I went to high school with the lady who rang me up! Well, we started talking, and it was so nice to catch up with her, eventually I told her I'd take her mother a cake, because I'd just love to see her mother, and she gave me another 10 percent off! So, do you like the jacket?"

Yes, yes, I like the jacket. You can leave the house to Questicle and my sister, but I want that jacket.

Mom and I spend a lot of time together, so it's easy for me to forget that she's part of a whole different generation, the generation that believes that chocolate gives you acne, and that only perverts hang out on the "world wide web." Then sometimes, she reminds me, in ways that bring a whole new meaning to the term generation gap.

Recently, Mom and Dad were sitting together reading the Sunday paper. Mom was deeply engrossed in the Garden section (I can only assume), when Dad interrupted her with a question about his chosen material, an editorial on pop culture. "What's 'twittering'?" he asked.

Mom looked around, baffled. She cocked her head, then looked at him, assumed he had really lost it, and replied, "I don't hear anything!"

I'm not actually on Twitter, because I don't think I'm responsible enough to nanny another social status, but to my credit, I at least know what it means. However, mom knows the meaning of bargain hunting, so I'm keeping her around.