Pump up the Jelly

2002-10-31 11:12 a.m.

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eleven - twelve

How parents lie to kids without blinking an eye:

Did you know I was conceived.........WAIT! Conceived! The one word in the English language that follows the rule: I BEFORE E, EXCEPT AFTER C. MOTHERFUCKERS! Anyway, I was conceived in Nebraska. This is what my mother told me. I also seem to remember, when I was little, asking her why on earth she went to Nebraska. I believe she said “to visit your father’s family.”

Last weekend after the Halloween party we went to together, it somehow came up. Before I continue, though, my mother was Cheech (as in Cheech and Chong) complete with moustache. I made her a 8 inch joint. She had the voice down pat. Which goes to further illustrate the final point I will make. Anyway, I get the real story. “We went cross country in a van.” (read: here you go, a can of worms)

First of all, did she get permission (being not yet 17 and all) to go or did she just say, “fuck you I’m going.”? And furthermore, supported by the fact that she didn’t make her confirmation because she told the priest to go fuck himself, was my mom a punk?

Secondly, how did she know it was Nebraska? Was she traveling with other people and the only time alone the she got alone with him was behind some haystacks? Or had she been a virgin, held out till Nebraska, and then succumbed to the handsome long haired man, but was so shocked by the experience that she refused another roll until she got home so she could ask her sisters about what it was “supposed” to feel like? My imagination is often a curse.

Second semi-lie: My aunt got a compression fracture in her back. We went to visit her shortly after she found out; I was around 10. Without blinking an eye, she said that it happened when she fell of her 4 wheeler. Which she did, but it didn’t

Yes just recently again, my mother says as a matter of fact, “Psssh, that happened when someone kicked the barstool out from underneath her.”

Okay, again, did some stranger do it, or someone who had some personal vendetta against her?

What secret life have these people been living; under my nose? I mean, it was bad enough to find out that my aunt was a stewardess on some private drug dealer’s jet for a month. And furthermore this was one of the real life guys, there’s even a book about him, that the movie Blow was based on. My aunt knew him because her friend married him when she was 18, they got divorced when he went to jail for life and then she goes on, years later, to marry my stepfathers dad, 17 years her senior, and then she sees my mother after like 10 years and says “You have to meet my new husbands son, he’s cute, you’ll like him.” Bam! My mother marries him a year later. Tangled web, indeed.

And although, Anna, in that discussion on the bus to the symphony how I was telling you how I’d wished to have grown up with well educated parents who introduced me to films and books and music and travel, I wouldn’t trade that for all the crazy stories I could write and encyclopedia about.

Who's Your 80s Movie Icon Alter-Ego? Find out @ She's Crafty

I probably lied, I just really wanted to be him.

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