On Obsessions and Addictions...

My mother has a variety of hair-brained obsessions and addictions, some of which I have previously exploited.  Most recently is her obsession with Facebook.

My mother owns a computer, which she uses to card catalog all the children's books she collects and her many copies of Tom Cruise's "Cocktail." (She has a check out sheet just in case you might want to borrow it from her library.)  She saves this precious data on floppy disk.  Due to the existence of the floppy drive, you may have guessed that this prehistoric apparatus does not have internet capabilities.  So she goes to the public library for her Facebooking needs.

She has been thrilled to reconnect with old childhood friends from grammar school and finds ecstasy in commenting on everything anyone and everyone says.  The addiction has had a dominant influence on her life, giving her a high like no other narcotic, opiate, sedative, pill or potion could.  Ironically, it also helped boost her self-esteem a little, giving her something 'important' to do that helped her realize her purpose in life.

Although I accepted her friend request, of course I blocked her from seeing my posts, like most good "kids" do.  For heaven's sake, I'm not an enabler.

Through Facebook she received an invitation to attend a few school reunions.  One, a 20 year high school reunion, and the other a grammar school reunion. 

My mom has never been one to wear much make-up and has never been savvy about hairstyles, thus the wig fetish.  But this time she was going to venture out into a whole other realm and get downright experimental for her reunions.  By now her hair had grown back--and then some--and she vowed never to cut it again.  She prided herself in her new found identity as Rapunzel. 

On this particular day in which she was "experimenting" with "hairstyles" she had put all of her waist-length hair up in approximately 65 curlers.  She decided to try on some make-up while she was waiting for her hair to set.  In her pink and green Caboodles box she had a rainbow of colors.  Green, blue, purple and magenta eye shadows, hot pink lipstick and several different shades of blush.  So she began artfully painting her canvas of a face as beautifully as a Monet painting.  Brown eye pencil, blue eye shadow, and hot pink lipstick.  And a true Monet it was.  I mean, she could have been Tammy Faye Baker's sister.

("When she is done with her masterpiece, she looketh at her reflection into the heavens and calls her creation good.")

My mother called me on the phone shortly after her prodigious rebirth and told me she was amazed at her make-up, but still waiting for her hair to set.  She explained to me the story of being invited to her school reunion and trying different hairstyles. But now that she had her hair in curlers, she was bored and going through withdrawls. She couldn't wait to update her status on Facebook to let everyone know she was working on a physical metamorphosis for the get together.

She began to ramble on the phone to me and said, "I know I have curlers in my hair, but I really have to get to the library to check my Facebook.  You see, I've been saving this wig for a special occasion, and I think with this new look, I have just the guts to wear this wig out in public.  I could put it on over my curlers and go to the library, and no one would ever notice."

I suggested to my mother that she just wait until her hair was done, but she was adamant and defiant, so I suggested she put a plastic shopping bag over her head (and breath deeply).  At least it would keep her hair dry in the drizzling rain.  Yet again, she was too stubborn to take heed. 

It's bad enough going out in curlers, but trying to conceal this faux pas was like robbing Peter to pay Paul.

So she covered all 65 curlers under her wig.  I can only imagine the gawking and snickering now.  "Hey Johnny! Get a load of this!!!" Nothing short of a freak show, people must have been baffled at how a person with hydrocephalus had survived this long.  I'm telling you, people would have paid good money to see this.  I should have set up a booth, keeping my mother hidden behind a curtain and charging $1 per person to see the woman with the world's largest head!

She was the epitome of a caricature drawn by Monet, "And it only cost twenty francs!!!!"

Eventually my mom figured out how she was going to style her hair, now she just needed to make arrangements to get to her reunion across the country.