The Huddled Masses Yearning To Breathe Free

The holiday was the 4th of July, 3 years ago (I think). My mother had offered to host the family party at her new house, which a majority of the family hadn't seen yet. She usually doesn't host the parties anymore, since the group is so big, but for some reason I couldn't do it, and she decided to take it on.

If you know my mother, you know that hoopla isn't her thing. Her home is meticulously decorated, as is she, and she can get a bit on edge if the meticulousness is threatened. My mother is known for keeping her cool, but there are a few recipes for disaster, and the following story contains one of them.

We all started arriving at her house, in dribs and drabs. The day was very muggy; a thunderstorm was brewing, so it was extremely humid. She was in the kitchen cooking (baked beans, I think), while wearing the perfect hostess outfit. A large crowd was gathered in and around the kitchen, chatting with her. Some of the nieces and nephews had brought boyfriends/girlfriends, so there were a few newcomers to the group. Again, if you know my mother, you know she was in her glory. Wearing a cute outfit, in her cute house, cooking some cute baked beans, with an audience to entertain.

My oldest niece Bonnie was there, with her husband and her 3 boys. Eric, (ELew, my oldest brother, not to be confused with EMo, my husband), had taken the kids outside.

Now, let me take a moment to describe a subset of ELew's personality, for those of you who don't know him well....ELew enjoys stirring a pot. It's a hobby. But the way he stirs a pot can be very subtle. All of a sudden the pot has been stirred, everything in it flailing around, and he will be standing quietly in a corner, twirling the end of his moustache between his thumb and forefinger and chuckling.

So when he was outside with the kids, he came upon a rabbit hole in the ground. One of Bonnie's boys, Thomas, reached his hand in and pulled out a baby rabbit. He was so excited, and ELew encouraged him to take it upstairs to show Gramma.

Thomas carried the baby bunny upstairs into the kitchen, where Mom was holding court. Thomas walks through the crowd of people, and over to the stove where Mom was standing. He holds out his hands and opens them..."Look Gramma!".

.........Did I mention that my mother has a miniature poodle? A poodle who is very protective of her? A poodle who growls at my Dad when he hugs Mom? (Although, in my opinion, a dog who gets his ass wiped with a tissue when he comes in from taking a dump has no right to be growling at anybody for any reason...).

Anyway, Teddy decided that this helpless baby bunny was probably going to attack my mother. So he came charging into the kitchen, grabbed that rabbit out of Thomas's hands, and started shaking it violently in his mouth.

Baby bunny blood went spewing everywhere. Thomas started screaming. The entire audience of people was shrieking with laughter.

At this point, everyone present that day saw a most unusual sight. It was like seeing the Abominable Snowman, or Bigfoot. We all saw Jan Lewis lose her cool. I will explain it to you, so that if you ever get the chance to see it, you'll recognize it early enough to grab your camera.

First, she quietly retreated to her bedroom. At which point a deadly hush descended over the partygoers. We all just stood around looking at each other, wondering who was going to make the first move. Slowly everyone started going about their business, someone took over the beans, someone else started cleaning up the baby bunny blood, and everyone started talking again in whispers.....

"....do you think she's freaking out in there?" ".....should someone go in there?....." ".....I'm not going in there, somebody else needs to do it" ".......Send Jamie (Bonnie's then-new-husband), he's new, make him do it!!" ".....send Andrew, no one ever gets mad at Andrew!!" ".....man, Teddy really went to town on that bunny didn't he!!!!?!" "............who knew baby bunnies had so much blood?" "...........do you think she's ever going to come out?"

Meanwhile, Ava was having Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, and had retreated to a corner of the upstairs office, sitting on the floor with her face to the wall. Thomas, her ever faithful comrade, was sitting next to her, patiently waiting it out.

Finally, about 30 minutes later, Mom's bedroom door opened. Everyone froze in their spots, afraid to look. We all just looked at each other with dumb smiles on our faces, pretending to be continuing our casual conversations, all the while checking to see if Mom was holding a gun.

This is the part of the story where every woman needs to sit up and pay close attention. If you want to know how to wreak revenge in a classy manner, take note:

Mom walked out of her bedroom door, and very calmly started walking around the house opening windows. We were all thinking "oh no, she's lost her mind". After she finished opening all the windows, she went back to her bedroom. On the way to her bedroom, she passed by the thermostat...................

Remember when I mentioned how unbearably muggy it was that day?

Well, as she passed the thermostat, she very casually reached over and flipped the air conditioning to OFF.


For the next 2 hours, the house was a tropical rain forest. Comments like "she's trying to smoke us out!!!" and "Gramma wants to kill us all!" were heard.

Finally, Amy and I realized that it was up to us to go in to Mom's room. Everyone else was scared shitless.

We went and knocked on her door, and walked in.

There she was, lounging on her bed in a lovely floral dressing gown, toy poodle curled up by her side, with a stack of fashion magazines.....windows all closed, and the ceiling fan on high. Her room was as cool as an arctic breeze. She looked up from her magazine and said "Hey, how's it going out there?", as if she hadn't a care in the world, and didn't notice that Amy's and my mascara was running down our cheeks and our blouses were stuck to our chests.


The moral of this story? Don't try to mess with a Southern Belle when she's entertaining. She'll get you back, and the horse you rode in on, and you won't even know you been gotten.......