Mama's Family

Someone at work asked me where I was from the other day.

"Jersey, beeeeooooootch!" I replied while slapping my own ass in full view of the Xerox and the paper slicer.

In my dreams.

"I'm from New Jersey." I curtsied and then spit into my dip cup.

"Oh," she said. I didn't ask why. She offered. "I've just never seen someone wear so many skirts to work."

Oh yes. That's for sure a truthitude. Now, I'm pretty sure genealogists and old women with the Internets and cats have established that I was indeed born in a skirt. I wear them all summer; I'm the kinda gal who would slip them on for softball games and swimming if the Man would allow it. Two days ago I slept in a skirt. Sober. I hadn't worn it to work. I just put it on because it looked like it might feel good to sleep in.

This has nothing to do with my geographic origin, and everything to do with the fact that my mother was the one God and Oprah chose to raise me. Mom is a woman who puts on pantyhose and a skirt to pick up milk at the Giant. A gal who somehow got my dad to wear pants throughout his 63 years, never donning shorts UNLESS HE WAS AT THE BEACH. That's right. Ever been to New Jersey in August? You remember the 99 percent humidity, right? Oh, and you saw that guy mowing the lawn in his 33" Levi's? The sweaty male with the wife bringing him iced tea while wearing a knee-length skirt? Yep. That was Dad.

And the oddities didn't stop there. Scratch that - not oddities, like I was raised by hippies in the back of a yellow VW van or my family drank tainted Kool Aid - but endearing-ities. Quirks that make us special.

Number One.

We've never had a real fire in our fireplace. As far as I'm concerned, fire is blue, orange, yellow and green, and cavemen roasted their meat over a hot pit courtesy of Duraflame.

When we are together as a family, we watch all of our television with subtitles. And with the volume the ENTIRE WAY UP TO 11. This is the action of neither 1) my sister nor 2) me. Right.

This one hurts: we like Kathie Lee. Always have. Oh, and pate, as terribly un-PC as it is. We love it love it love it like we love handfuls of Cheddar Cheese Goldfish. Sorry, PETA.

We have a bias against ABC News. The local ABC news, no matter where we've lived in the US of A, is always the most like a supermarket tabloid. Loud and lying and alls about fear in the homeland. We are absolutely, hopelessly devoted to NBC. It didn't hurt that Lauer was one of our local newscasters before he lost his hair and slept with Katie.

Wah! My parents always say it wrong! It's WAAAASHINGTON. Not WaRshington. Laundry = Wash. There is no "r." Mom and Dad to your corners for time out!

For some inexplicable reason, my parents call defecating "dobie-ing." "Take the dog out; she has to daaaahbie." Imagine the trauma I experienced as a child running across the Dobi brand scratch sponges at our local New Jersey Foodtown. Sweet Jebus! They recycle our crap into kitchen sponges? Worse than when my sister locked me in the boiler room that time. Definitely worse.

In full accord with the above, not once has anyone in my house ever discussed flatulence. NEVER. We have never used the word "fart" (I shudder just to type it) and we ignore it coming to the party with the exception of a stilted and slight "excuse me." To address it, to acknowledge its existence beyond this, well that would be like wearing newly-warshed shorts to cut the grass.