A Tribute to Mom.

My mom had been wailing on me for a good five minutes with a wooden spoon and I was trying very hard not to laugh.

I forget what I had done to make my mom go crazy but I know that I had annoyed her one to many times and that she had finally snapped. All Moms do this, it is a right of passage for any kid. But the thing is, atleast in my family, my mom just didn’t have the heart to give licks. She was an amateur in this department. My father had been whipping me since before I could remember so I am something of a coniseur on proper whipping technique, both as the giver and the receiver.

But moms just don’t have the heart for this type of thing. She wasn’t into it and her technique was extremely flawed. For starters, she was using a wooden spoon made out of some lightweight crapo wood. This has no momentum and I was wearing jeans. It just couldn’t deliver the required pop that say a belt or good tree branch could.

Her swinging motion was also way off. She was more swatting than coming straight down on me so that most of the time she missed and was really just fanning my butt. When she did make contact, because of the way she was swinging, she would hit the side of my hip, next to my belt buckle and jeans inseam. This is a mistake because there is a lot more padding there and I couldn’t even feel the licks. Look, ask my Dad, you have to come straight down on the licks, make solid contact, then rev back up for anther one. It’s like practicing tennis. My mom sucks at Tennis too.

Then there was the craziness and screaming during the licks. Look, a kid has no idea what you are saying when he is getting licks. So by you talking he is trying to focus on your words and take his instruction while not focusing on the licks which makes it easier to ignore the licks. We have all heard this mindless drivel draval from our Moms and it is a constant source of amusement later on in life when you can joke about it.

So here we were, my mom trying to give me licks without realizing that my father had pretty much made me immune to this half assed approach. I felt like giving her pointers on how to do it right. No Ma, snap the wrist and knock off the talking. Let’s get a real showing her.

Eventually, the spoon broke which is what always happens in this type of story and my mom stopped. I turned around and had to hold everything back to not laugh. I had to remember that I was in trouble and to get out of it, I tried to muster up some tears. But I just couldn’t do it and I think I might have smiled. But I said I was sorry and that was that. If it had been my dad and he saw that I had smiled, he would have gotten a bigger switch from the switch tree.

Moms just don’t have the heart for this kind of thing and never seem to follow protocol. Look, it’s simple, you explain what you did wrong. Tell me to bend over, give me a quick three, I cry and say I’m sorry and that’s it. She confused me by messing up the routine that my father and I had spent many, many years getting together on.

But that is Moms for you and that’s why you love them. As crazy as we drive them, they just can’t help but take it a little easier on you than your father.

Here are a few gaurentees for you that makes Moms, well, Moms.

When you are 24 and want to move back home for that “short time”, it’s your mom that is going to let you come on back while preventing your Dad from charging you rent. Oh, he wants to and without moms influence, he would. So your mom is a money saver in the long run.

When you are put in jail because you did something stupid in college, you can always count on mom to bail you out. Dad would have no problem letting you spend the night in the pokey but mom can’t help but worry about her baby in that cell when all “those” people, never once admitting that you might be one of “those” people.

And when you finally go to trial, I don’t care if they have DNA evidence, she will always believe that you are innocent and getting the short end of the stick. She will be convienced that everyone is actually biased against you because you are so smart and handsome and she will then proceed to tell the DA to go fuck himself.

When you want to buy that new car and you are young and have no credit. Who do you think is going to cosign that loan with you? It ain’t gonna be dad because he will just remind you that he had to walk everywhere at your age and lived in a storage shed behind a KFC. Nope, Mom will pony up and get you that car because her baby can’t walk that far on the streets.

When you do go away to college, who do you think is going to take you to Walmart for that spending purge to get your dorm room ready. Sure, you don’t really need any window treatments or enough snack cakes to feed the army, but she will gladly spend the 300 bucks to give you those things. Without your Mom, you would be living like a caveman.

And who is going to buy you that new couch for your first apartment? Mom.

And when you are sick, I don’t care how old you are, who do you really want around? That’s right, mom. No one makes soup better than your mom. No one gives back rubs like your mom. And it doesn’t matter if you are 5 and have the flu or 22 and drunk, no one cleans up puke more judgement free than Mom.

When you are a kid and you are in so much trouble that your parents have to leave the room to talk about your punishment, who do you really think is fighting for you in there? Who is making the exceptions for you? Who do you think is really having second thoughts about going harsh? Mom. And your dad will only listen to Mom. You are still her darling baby boy and without her in there being your defense attorney, terms like “for life” would certainly apply to you.

So yeah, mom does all the things we know about like cooking, cleaning and making sure you don’t look like a hobo when you are 10. She will sympathize when you have a massive zit on prom night and holds no judgement against you if you want to call your Barbie an action figure. She’s your mom and she has no choice but to love you and give you the benefit of the doubt for the rest of your life.

Sure, she can drive us absolutely bonkers like no one else can. She can show up at your sister’s high school tennis match and yank her out infront of her friends and you have massive embarrasement. But what are you going to do?

It’s never the licks with Mom that really scares you. It’s the complete break from reality when she starts flinging dishes everywhere. She’s crying and screaming about how she is unappreciated she is and each syllable is punctuated by the shattering of that fine china. But take a closer look when this happens—most times she even has the presence of mind to break the dishes in the sink because she knows that she will have to pick them up anyway.

So the next time you are driving your mom crazy, and maybe you are doing it on purpose, let her take a few swats at you with the wooden spoon. Sure she sucks at this kind of thing, but help her along a little. Pull a nose hair and muster up some tears, make her feel good about herself.

Because one day when you are away at college and you need to explain how you just bounced 600 bucks worth of checks because you are a complete idiot—who do you think is going to cover that? Dad who lived in a shed at your age or Mom who can’t bear the thought of you going without your Little Debbies?

I love you Mom. Happy Mother’s Day.