My Mother the Ninja

I had a lot of fun growing up. I had the great gift of having my mom be a full-time homemaker. Today I was reflecting on some of the insane things that happened around my house and I almost cannot contain my laughter. So, I thought I would share some of those "moments from my house."

I should pre-empt this by saying that this is about 10 times funnier if you actually know my mom (or dad for that matter) and that my mom drinks copious amounts of tea, an excellent source of caffeine, and an excellent source of hyperactivity.

When I was younger I used to find it amusing to hide in a room and wait to hear my dad coming and jump out and scare him. So, this one evening I got all ready in the spare bedroom and waited. I heard the footsteps coming and at the most opportune time I reached my arm out. The next few seconds were like a slow-motion scene from The Matrix. I heard a scream — my mom's. She reached out, grasped my wrist, twisted my arm and pivoted into the room in one swift motion. Upon entering the room she grasped my neck with her free hand and then threw me onto the bed at the back of the room. I vividly remember how I felt at this moment: shocked, terrified. . . then my Mom realized it was me, and, get this, she started laughing. Uncontrollable laughter. I was still strewn on the bed in disbelief and holding my neck. My mom managed to ask if I was okay, and she muttered something about not sneaking up on her in a dark alley. This might be a good time to note that I was 15 at this point, so I was already taller than her and not exactly easy to throw.

Now fast forward to about a month later. My mom was vacuuming in the porch at the top of the basement stairs. I was going down the hallway towards the kitchen. My mom was in the way and not wanting to provoke a scare I tapped her on the back to get by. Well, my mom responded with a quick elbow jab to the ribs, enough to slam me (luckily) into the basement door. I can only imagine what would have happened if that door was open. Oh, and again, she laughed so hard she cried.

I remember once when I was home sick from school. Mom was doing the dishes and just as a joke I dipped my hand into the bubbles and put them on her nose. My mom reached into the soapy water and pulled out a soaking wet dishcloth and threw it at me. Now, apparently she had gotten a taste for it, so, she then picked it up and proceeded to chase me around the house throwing the wet dishcloth at me. I'd say she has about 90% accuracy with a moving target. Ok, so we both thought this was hilarious.

Most parents try to protect their children, but, apparently it depends on the danger. One summer we had this annoying tapping type of noise in our house, all day, with no specific pattern. We went through different appliances, the heating system, the water system and we couldn't find what was making the noise. Well, one afternoon my Mom was in the basement doing the laundry and she started screaming like a mad-woman. Thinking something was wrong with our dog, I ran to find out what was going on. When I got halfway down the stairs I saw Mom crouched on the floor, yelling "Something's swooping! It's a huge bat!" She pointed to my room. Being a curious kid, I slowly walked over to check it out, and heard huge swooping noises. It certainly was not a bat, it was a large bird! Somewhere in the confusion my Mom pulled out a book of bird species, seemingly out of thin air (I had never seen this book before in my life). While the thing was swooping she looked up a picture of it, only to find out it was one of the largest species of woodpeckers. Great. We ducked and ran upstairs. Now, obviously we couldn't let a giant woodpecker take over the basement and Mom wanted to get her laundry finished. So, she thought it would be a great idea to feed the thing, then try to free it. Apparently the tapping had been the bird tapping off the cover on our chimney which is how it got inside, but, it was gonna have to go out another way. So, my Mom came up with the brilliant plan to bring food and water, trap it in the bedroom, go inside the bedroom with the biggest woodpecker on the planet and open the window for him. Perfect. So, she turned to me, handed me two oven mitts and said "I'll get its food ready for you." My only reaction was "For Me?!! You want ME to go in there?!" She broke up some bread pieces, handed me a bowl of water and nudged me down to the basement. Luckily the bird was in the room, so, she pushed me in there with the oven mitts for safety and food to attract the thing. Great plan. I put the food down and it just started swooping like mad and I ran and opened the window and let nature free itself.

In retrospect, I'm sure Mom was trying to teach me a lesson, something along the line of: If the giant woodpecker doesn't peck you to death, something like this can only make you stronger. . . or give you terrible fear of swooping birds.

So, not only is my Mom fast as lightning, a little bit frightening and has expert timing she also has the ability to pull bird books out of thin air.