My Evil Ass Mother was Messing with my Head

My mother has just gotten back from a vacation. She was gone for more than two weeks. I'm just now mentioning it because I am a bit superstitious and wasn't really sure she'd be coming back alive. I just saw melodramatic flash through your mind. Stop that! I am not! Ok, fine, maybe I am. But only a little. But she does have a history of nearly dying on her vacation. (See the post from May called Family Road Trips-I have to figure out how to link here.)

So Mom went on a two week trip with her church group. They went to Cairo, Egypt, then Lebanon, then ended in Jerusalem, Israel. I had to talk her into going on the trip. She wasn't sure she even wanted to go. Then I started wondering who was going to watch my kids when she got pushed off of a mountain. It would be just like her to climb to the top of a pyramid and then have something crazy happen like a giant hawk swooping out of the sky and carrying her off to be used as food for the hawk's young. She's a small woman. It could happen! Can you even climb the pyramids?

I made certain demands of my mother before she went on this trip. I knew I wanted some kind of verification on a regular basis that she was alive. She refused to call because it would be very expensive. I talked her into texting occasionally since she has finally figured out how to text. She said she'd also email because one of the other women on the trip was going to do that.

The first text I got from her was:

Made it to new york city
mom

This text sounded exactly like her. I don't think she's figured out how to capitalize or use punctuation with her phone yet. So, no biggie here.

The next text was from Cairo.

Made it to cairo got an engraved neclace made for amanda mom

And then I got an email from my mother.

Amandaam
We are having fun. traveling with armed guard for security.
we are at st. caterines now.
Love, mom

At first, I read this email and thought, Mom is having a fantastic time. This is right up her alley!

Then I didn't get anything for a couple of days and started to freak out. I think I was fairly justified for freaking out for a couple of reasons. My mother misspelled my name. I have had this name for more than 30 years! She had to assert her authorita with my father and demand to name me Amanda. (I was almost named Cleopatra--the whole name, her choice.) And then, my mother is a court reporter. She's been a court reporter for almost 35 years! This is what she does for a living, day in and day out. She gets paid to type and use proper capitalizations and occasionally, proper punctuation and grammar. And with this email, she can't spell my name right or capitalize or use proper punctuation?? What the hell?

Then I started to compose an email to send her in my head that went like this:

Mother! This message is completely out of character for you! It's grammatically incorrect and the punctuation is missing and you haven't capitalized anything. And you spelled my name wrong. ME!! Your first born child!! Prove to me that you haven't been kidnapped by telling me how much you loved your last stepmother. If I don't get word from you soon, I'm calling the embassy. Your panicking daughter.

Then I told the husband about my planned email and my worries. He talked me out of sending the email. Told me I was being ludicrous, among other things. None of them were very flattering. Dammit. I think the nicest thing he called me was a drama queen.

So I had several large glasses of wine and calmed down a bit. Decided I could wait a couple of days for her next text or email.

It may have been a few bottles of wine, but they were bottles of Shiraz and ever so tasty.

Four interminable days later, she finally sent a text message.

Still in jordan madison fell off bus skined his arm mom

I have no idea who Madison is, but I know she went with a group of 30 or 40 people. The rest of the trip proceeded with the text messages. She and I are going to have some serious words when we finally talk about her attempts to scare the crap out of me when I see her tomorrow. She did get home today and was in bed by 7:15 p.m.

She didn't say a single word in her texts about any near fatal accidents, but she hasn't taken a trip in her life that didn't almost end with her death. I'll put up some pictures to when she sends me some.