May is a special month. May 1st is where we may celebrate or we may protest against work. As a professionally starving writer, I celebrate that my accounting skills may support me, while I may just become a world best-selling author. It is also the month we may celebrate Cinco De Mayo at Taco Mayo. We may celebrate and honor the memory of all those that have died defending this great nation. We may celebrate our mother’s, who decided not to strangle us.
This is a true story. When I was young I never had problems entertaining myself. All I had to do was find the objects of my amusement. Just about anything would work, but cans of hairspray make great objects for the imagination. If you are old enough to recall fighter planes of WWI from movies or history books, you noticed they had two machine guns right behind the propeller. How those bullets made it through amazes me to this very day.
Now that you have the image engrained in the brain, substitute two cans of hairspray. Now the goal was to lock myself in my mother’s bathroom and chase down one (1) fly. Just like a WWI fighter pilot, I’d spray bullets of goo on that one (1) fly until the Red Baron (that’s me of course) took his arch nemesis to the ground. Unfortunately for me and my mother it takes two cans to bring down just 1 fly. In the process of battle the entire bathroom became like one big piece of fly paper.
Needless to say I had to escape the scene but my shoes stuck to the floor, leaving damning evidence. Then, my mother would decide come to use the potty and stick to it. That’s when the brave hero, the Red Baron, after hearing his full name called out, ran and hid under the bed. When mothers call out your full name, your future existence is about a 50/50 proposition. Soon the famous Red Baron had a new name. The Red Buttocks Baron. Geez, you would think I’d be saluted by killing that one (1) fly that would mass produce 1 kazillion flies and fly descendents.
You see, back in my day, corporal punishment was socially accepted and expected. Unruly kids needed to know their place and the consequences for their actions. The goals was to keep you out of prison. I truly thank both my mom and dad for it, as they taught me life is tough and sometimes painful. My mom was a stay at home mom. She endured my whims. She endured my two sisters, who, once they discovered boys lost their minds completely. Because of my mother and mothers worldwide, and the month of May, I drafted Section 3 of the Man Club:
Section 3 – Mothers May Day
All members are to bow before their mothers at least one day a year. You are to look them in their eyes and thank them. Thank them for bringing you into this world and not strangling you. Shower them with flowers, or their choice of chocolates, but let them hear the words I LOVE YOU. Then ask them kindly and gently if you are now ungrounded from 2nd grade.
Crap, I forgot to say, “Mother May I.” Well, maybe next year she will finally forgive me for that sticky rear incident.
