Mothers. Everybody’s got one. Prerequisite to most peoples’ appearance on planet Earth is a gory luge ride down the vaginal slip-n-slide. To be sure there are those who, like Caesar, emerged from an ad hoc tummy twat in a scene reminiscent of the prison break in Raising Arizona, but the rest of us begin life owing a huge debt to our mother: The kind of fee you might charge someone for passing a bowling ball through your large intestine and out your anus; the kind of fee you would demand up front and then realize too late that you grossly underestimated the cost. So if your mother squirts you out, kicks you to the curb, and runs off to Vegas with the anesthesiologist, you’re still into her for at least a plaster preschool hand print and … oh … maybe a tricked-out Hummer with spinning rims. If she sticks around, you’re really in the red. Before you can even latch onto her teat, you’ll owe her dearly for things like stretch marks, saggy boobs, body fat, belly-button damage, and torn taint. Torn taint? That’s pretty much a beach house in Malibu right there. If she shepherds you through infancy, you’re looking at some pretty steep emotional charges for sleep loss, sore nipples, backaches, ass wiping, projectile vomit cleanup, and decimation of social life. By the time you can coo the word “mama,” you’re already beyond hope of repayment, but, just as a sadistic exercise in existential overkill, mama gets a minimum of 16 more years of indentured servitude followed by a lifetime of nerve-wracking worry. You’ll never pay her back, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t pop for a card or some flowers or maybe even dinner. One of the best places to have dinner with your mom is the Alamo Drafthouse. It takes the focus off of you. This Sunday take mom to the Alamo Downtown for aGLIFF’s fifth annual Mommie Dearest Roast. Free wire hangers, a costume contest, and rant-along subtitles. Maybe mommy finally will get some payback.
This article appears in May 12 • 2006.
