Glide On the Peace Train

It's like that scene in What's Up, Doc. The one where Burnsie (Streisand) has snuck into Howard's (O'Neal) hotel room and begun to take a bubble bath, and he returns to find her there. And Eunice (expertly played by rookie Madeline Kahn) suspects hanky panky and barges in, and chaos ensues. Fire. Vandalism. Food fights. And then all the folks who have made some form of contribution to the destruction have gone home and Howard is left there with his existence in pieces and no hope of ever putting it all back together again in order.

That is the beauty of Mom.

The day is a little gray but perfect for a trip to a Waterpark/Amusement Park and a little post mortem gaiety. There is one a mere 10 miles away and we can get discount tickets so we do not actually have to refinance the house to go in! Woo Hoo!

And while the day is lovely and we have a ripping good time on rides and slides and all manner of spinning things (the very last place a person with vertigo should go...) I am struck by how much easier the day is without having to supervise Mom.

It's like one of your kids having a really rotten kid as a friend. You are never comfortable with him out of your sight but to be in his company is downright torture. No rest for the weary.

My brother had a friend when we were growing up, Brett Newbauer. Picture Cory Feldman in his awkward Lost Boys days - only homelier and with worse glasses. And a perpetually running nose. He was so outrageous he could sometimes be entertaining, and you had to admire his chutzpah, but he was such trouble you were always afraid of what he'd do and how it would rub off on you.

He was a shoplifter...and not a good one, and would lift something trivial and not worth the risk and get caught while you were buying something harmless like a pack of gum. My brother was banned from a few stores for that reason.

He was always mouthing off to people who were guaranteed to tell your mother. I remember a remark to one gentleman that went something like "Blow me, clown!"

My mother took my brother and Brett to the beach one weekend. Brett managed to steal the comforter from the bed. Cha-ching.

And he was bizarre. He was on my brother's baseball team and famously left his position in left field mid-inning, hopped the fence and ran off because his mother had told him to be home for dinner.

And then there is Mom. Can't stand too close because then people hold you accountable for her when she is berating the supermarket clerk for not knowing where the other supermarket by the same name is located. Or charging full price instead of half in a two-fer because really it's the same thing. They give you the "Well, put her back in the straight jacket already and haul her to the booby hatch!" look.

And if you stand too close you might not actually stop yourself in time and clamp your hand over her mouth and drag her off when she begins to confront some random stranger about his presumed political views as denoted by his T-shirt.

But if you leave her alone, there is no way to know what heinous misguided statements or acts she is capable of and therefore there is no hope of defense for the weak and unsuspecting. She has a knack for tirelessly lashing out, however indiscriminately.

So amid the manic crowd of amusement parkers, with all the frenzied dashing from line to line and screaming and shrieking and blood curdling wailing, I find something remarkable.

Peace and quiet.