Less Than Cake

5. She is big on idle threats.

Ever walked into her house with a caffeine contaminated beverage like Dr. Pepper, Vanilla Coke, Moutain Dew etc. in stow? Undoubtedly she warned you to get that out of her house or she'll have your head.

Ever dropped by the house and examined the contents of the fridge MTV cribs style? Undoubtedly you discovered at least one strictly forbidden caffeinated beverage lurking in the dark nether regions of the refrigerator.

Either the perpetrator has been eliminated and the beverage has been retained as evidence, or all that fuss about "don't you be bringing that in my house or I'll..." was just another idle threat.

4. The Simpsons = Evil.

Don't be trying to watch this evil show in my mom's house or she'll have your....more idle threats, I know. Next time you visit, sit down in the family room. Turn on The Simpsons. Wait for it. Wait. One more sec....thump..thump..thump. Yep, that's her running down the hall from her sewing room...yeah, the room on the otherside of the house. Mute is your friend. She can hear Homer's "Doh" a mile away. Mute it and you 're safe. She is also very adept at recognizing Bart's voice, even through the chaos of dinner preparation.

3. She may be 55, but she talks smack like she's 21.

There is one good reason most of us kids are very competent teasers. That reason likes to be called mom. If you have ever played ping pong against her you know what I am talking about.

"Rejected. Don't you bring that weak tot action. You go strong to the mouth or you don't go at all." Yeah, she directed that commercial.

2. TiVO Lover.

My dad has been neglected ever since I introduced my mom to Mr. TiVO. My mom loves her TiVO so much she rarely leaves her sewing room. If you suggest relocating the TiVO to another room my mother is likely to fire off another threat. We are not so sure if this one is idle, however.

Don't feel bad for my dad though, I used my persuasive powers to convince my mom to invest in a TiVO for the old man's TV. Now my mom and dad are interacting again - yeah, multi-room viewing, the ability to pass recorded shows back and forth across the networked TiVOs, has been great for their marriage.

1. She is tricky. Very tricky.

Back in the day my mom had this great idea to save money and feed us kids powdered milk. Sounds delicious, I know. But it's not. Not like a bass anyways. This worked because for a long time that taste was all we knew.

Then regular milk (you know, the kind regular people drink) dropped in price, so she started buying that. Then the well documented milk shortage of the late 80's / early 90's caused the price of regular milk to sky rocket - just trust me on this one, I know I said it's well documented but the internet didn't exist back then so all your googling for confirmation is just a waste of time. With the ever increasing price of regular milk my mom decided to switch back to powdered milk. You can imagine how that went over with us kids. (For those lacking imagination, it didn't).

Faced with resistance from kid nation (nice plug for CBS), she pulled a fast one. She'd buy a gallon of milk, drink half, then fill it back up with powdered milk. The "half n half" method worked. We were oblivious to the foundation of lies breakfast had been built upon. Then she took the next step in trickery. We'd finish the gallon off, but she abandoned the "half n half" mix trickeration.

She moved on to the "save the empty gallon container, fill with 100% powerdered milk" method. A dirty trick if there ever was one. To this day I wouldn't recommend drinking her milk, unless you accompanied her to the store and the milk remained in your possession the entire time. Line of sight is very important here.