And the Nominee ISN'T......

The following story will serve to explain, why my submission for 2008 Mother of the Year was rejected -

My son has a car that he built himself. It’s his pride and joy.

He always calls it ‘butter’ (because he says it runs smooth)

I like to call it ‘parkay’ because it’s always breaking down or puddling some kind of fluid in the driveway

Perception is everything…

He constantly worries that someone will steal it, and if possible, always tries to box it in behind the other cars in our driveway at night.

I say ‘Who’d want it?’

He says ‘are you KIDDING ME?!’ (…. He’s so touchy sometimes!)

It’s his baby…

I understand…. He built it himself

He’s a guy….

Boys and their toys… isn’t that the old expression?

Okay, so one night, after spending several long days in the hospital with one of my other sons, I came home, totally exhausted with a horrible headache. I rifle through the medicine cupboard and the only headachy-type medicine that I could find was Tylenol PM.

THANK HEAVENS!

I Pop two, with a big glass of water, slip into bed and immediately conk out

When I say conk-out, I really mean, slip into a coma…

I dream all kinds of crazy, very vivid dreams that seem to go on and on and on…

I wake up at some point because I can’t figure out why the person whom I’ve just met, and is apparently my neighbor in the mansion next to mine, calls me Mom… over and over again. (that’s really annoying!)

My dream slowly disolved and I awoke in a puddle of drool, to hear my son saying “Mom, MOM! Someone stole my car out of the driveway!”

Now the next part of my story is going to make me sound unworthy of any awards, but at that moment in time, the most I could muster was to lift my head three inches off of the pillow and respond with

“Aww - that sucks!”

I guess that was pretty bad, but in my altered state, it was the best I could do.

A few milliseconds later, I was back in the new neighborhood where I had moved-on-up to and was reveling in my new financial status!

Flash forward – 7 am and I hear the front door shut…

I jump out of bed to greet my sweaty, out of breath son who said he was returning from his 5-mile walk/run home from where the police dropped him off when they found his car.

It started up, so they left him there.

He got in and headed home, but only made it 100 feet or so before it died due to some wires that had been tampered with.

I asked why he didn’t phone me to come and pick him up.

He answered that he knew I was tired and didn’t want to bother me….

What a guy! I love that kid! (See! I did something right!)

But the fact remains that while my boy was going through all of that, I was tripping and drooling (and lounging by my dreamy new pool) and of absolutely no help to him whatsoever…

Since that day, I can’t call his car ‘Parkay”

I feel too guilty…

After all, it is his baby….

Additionally, his conspiracy theories regarding the heist were right on the money….

So that cinched my rejection for sure! But I firmly believe that if I had not been under the influence of TPM, I may have made it through to Hollywood…

…. Or wherever they are holding this year’s competition.

It’s actually good that it worked out this way, because it will give me extra time to work on next year’s acceptance speech!