Not without my mother

This week would not have been complete without my mother’s hijinks.

Ah, my mom.

My AARP-traveling, widowed-but-open-to-trying-again, doesn’t-know-her-next-move mother.

My mom ended up in the ER again this week. Yeah. It’s not that she makes a habit of it. It’s just that the circumstances of her visits are always less than ideal.

For instance, the last time she was admitted, she was there escorting my one-arm great-aunt (See Bedtime Story for more on her). They were at a dinner party (which is code for Sangria-fest) and the armless twisted her ankle while walking around the pool. No. She did not fall in. That would have been too perfect. Her coiffed yellow hair completely sticking to her face, screaming for help, with one arm splashing around in the pool. It would’ve been awesome. But no. She fell on the pool deck.

They didn’t call 911. They just sat her down, in a chair, elevated her foot and poured her more Sangria. They placed a cold compress on her bulging ankle and told her that it was all going to be okay because in this country, they didn’t amputate on a whim.

When the armless stood up to leave, she was unable to walk. Convinced that it was a “broken ankle” and not “pure drunkenness,” my mom took her to Coral Gables Hospital’s Emergency Room. Only, after a few hours of waiting, my mom started to feel queasy. She felt the ER waiting room spin out of control. And, right there, she started puking, like Linda Blair in The Exorcist.

Not knowing that my mom had just come from a dinner party (remember, Sangria-fest) they admitted my mom under the suspicion that she was having a stroke. And left the armless, still with a broken ankle, in the waiting room by herself.

But that was then.

This time around, was very different – and much more respectable. Respectable, if I leave out the part where my mom was admitted wearing a leopard bra and see-through panties. But why leave that out? Everyone saw it.  Including her concerned co-workers. After all, they were present while Fire Rescue workers undressed her in the office. The office of the firm that happens to be owned by her son. Yeah. Good times.

What landed her in the ER this time around was she gulped a fat-burner with a few cups of coffee on an empty stomach. When Fire Rescue showed, she had a pulse of 200 beats per minute. So, on my seventh day of work, after spending the afternoon at a major seaport, getting sexually harassed, I spent the night with my mom, holding the back of her hospital gown, so no one would see through her see-through underwear.