My sister-in-law wants to give my mother a vibrator.

Just come on out with it. A few years ago I gave her a massager, but nobody got it – at the very least, my mother. Usually, my mother is a very Christian woman, very uptight and modest. She married my father and divorced him after 12 years. Her second marriage was to a real church-goer. He’d pound the bible and his breath smelled like hellfire. After 17 years and her finally letting the family talk some sense into her, she moved into her own apartment.

Don’t get me wrong, her ways haven’t changed. She’s still stodgy. She still acts as if she’s crippled and can’t get around half the time. Death is not on this woman’s door, but she’d like for everyone to think so. It gets to where I can’t take her calls. If she’s going to spend the first ten minutes discussing her ailments – well...that was the ten minutes that I’d allotted for the entire fucking conversation.

It’s been like that for a while now. Then – Thanksgiving. Someone must have slipped her something. The husband is Italian. He came over to my side and asked why my mother was so racked up on goofballs. Goofballs? I asked my sister-in-law later on if her doctor put her on something. She wasn’t sure, but she said that she wanted to get my mother a real vibrator. This is a lot to handle. Was this my mother?

This transformation was a little too much for me to handle. I’m not one of those people who doesn’t understand that their parents are people, too. I get that, but it’s as if my mother’s going in reverse. She’s just now becoming a person and it’s freaking me out on about a level 3. If a vibrator is purchased, I’m going to shoot straight to a mid-high level 4.

Christmas will be interesting this year.