"And it only cost $60!!!!!!"

My mother had inevitably figured out which hairstyle to wear, and began her packing for the big reunion.
She is always one for a party or ball, so she packed 5 of her favorite formal dresses she bought from the second hand store for $1 each. Never mind that her reunion was a BBQ in the park, my mother was going to look like a damn royal princess. I am sure she also envisioned arriving on a flower covered float, standing and waving in the fashion of, "elbow-elbow, wrist-wrist, wipe a tear and blow a kiss." Either that or a convertible, so she could be chauffeured while sitting on the back with her hair blowing in the wind. People would stop whatever they were doing, jaws would drop, and everyone would start chanting her name and saying how beautiful she was. My mother would then get on her megaphone (not that she needed one) and tell them, "You may all go back to eating your cake and appetizers on toothpicks. As you were."

But there was still one fundamental particle missing to her scheme. She still did not have a way to get to this reunion several states away.
My mother rummaged the Craigslist ads, leaving no stone unturned for a rideshare across the country. She saw an ad by a mother traveling with her daughter for a toddler pageant, one with someone moving down South in a Uhaul, and one with a couple of Hispanic male criminals. She was naturally attracted to the ad by the Hispanic criminals and wanted to ensure equal opportunity by choosing the minorities, but she figured she'd call all of them first to make sure they were legit.
The mother-daughter pageant goers sounded like a fun trip, so my mom met up with them in person. However, sitting across the table from them at the park, she was dry heaving and choking on the gallons of "Unbreakable" by Khloe and Lamar the woman had bathed herself in like a French whore. There was no way my mother could endure a trip in enclosed chambers across the country when she was this deathly allergic to the woman's cologne. Not to mention the Virginia Slims the woman couldn't put down.
So my mom called the movers who were offering a ride. Turns out she would've had to ride in the back of the truck with the cargo. She told them she would consider it, but she thought she'd call the Hispanics to see what they had to offer.
She called the Hispanics and decided to meet up with them, to do her own sort of interview. As she watched the two Hispanic males climb out of their car and walk over to her, reality dove into slow motion and the theme song to Miami Vice began to play. She saw their ripped jeans, scruffy bodies, piercings and tattoos and immediately knew it was fate for her to ride with these men. Then they gave her a price she could not refuse.  She left me a voicemail with a description of the vehicle and the men just in case I didn't hear from her again.  She didn't know their names, but she was pretty sure at least one of them was named Jose.

My mother called me when she arrived to her destination, told me the details and with glee announced, "And it only cost $60!!!!" Never mind it could have cost her her life, my mother would never turn down such an opportune deal.

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.