The Things My Mother Says

I owe it to my parents for passing along their wit and sense of humor. Which leads me to the quips my mom supplies us with daily that make us laugh until we pee and make my son totally confused. I find myself borrowing these little sayings from her and using them myself, although no one but my mom knows what in the hell I just said. My favorites are:
1. “Bats in your belfry” She uses this saying to demonstrate someone’s angry and out of control behavior. I used it on my son and he understood the bat part but “Mom, what’s a belfry?”
2. “When you lie down with dogs you will get fleas.” This is my absolute favorite and can be used in a number of scenarios. That friend of yours that goes through men like underwear and wonders why she keeps having to visit the gyno? Or your middle child who has some distasteful friends that trouble seems to follow whenever they appear? My youngest of course doesn’t get it and is now wary of laying by our family dog.
3. “We look like a couple of skin flints.” This saying was used as we were walking into a fancy schmancy baby shower with our humble little gift wrapped in something akin to a grocery bag. We camouflaged it behind the larger, more elaborately wrapped gifts. (Hey don’t judge-we were running late hence the wrapping, and on a budget, hence the gift size). We came for the food anyway. And appropriately snuck out before our gift was opened. Who is this gift from? There’s no card. I haven’t had the opportunity to use this phrase at home yet, but I keep it in the back of my mind to reference as needed.
4. “You look like the wild woman from Barnio”. This is used frequently by my mother to describe my new hairstyles at any given time. I’ve altered it a bit, dropping the woman for the man and used it on my son. He sort of gets it by the way I’m staring at his gelled up ‘faux hawk’ but wants to know where Barnio is. Sayings and sarcasm is totally lost when it comes to him.
So there you have it folks. I told my mother she would star in my next post and I hope as she’s reading this she’s not offended, but finds humor in the magic that is that is her.