Even The Dark, Seedy Underbelly Has A Bright Side…

..If You Look Hard Enough.

As some of you may know, I have a crazed, crazy, crazy-ass an interesting Mother.  Over the last few years, she has meddled, stuck her goddamn nose in our business kindly offered her advice on many, many occasions when it comes to infertility.

Let’s see…there are the countless herbs and tinctures and supplements which she has mandated that I buy.

There’s the small statue of the Patron Saint of Fertility, also known as Saint Antony of Padua, that she purchased God knows where and told us to put by our bedside.  And I’m sorry, but it’s just creepy to hear your Mom say, "put this by your bedside."  Ewwwww.

Apparently, Antony of Padua (or A TO THE P! as we like to call him) is the Patron Saint  in charge of the following:  starving animals, barrenness, boatmen, Brazil, domestic animals, elderly people, expectant mothers, Italy, fishermen, harvests, Lisbon, oppressed people, poor people, Portugal, pregnant women, seekers of lost articles, shipwrecks, sterility, travel hostesses, and travelers.

Now, I can multi-task like a mother fucker, but please!  Is one Saint really supposed to be able to care for Italy, Portugal (and I guess Lisbon gets a special shout-out all its own), animals (both starving AND domestic), the oppressed, old and poor people plus fishermen AND the barren and sterile?  Isn’t that just too much to ask of one man, errr Saint?? 

(I personally think fishermen should get a Patron Saint all to themselves, what with the waves and seasickness and yellow rubbery hats and all.  But I guess that’s just me.)

(Sidenote: We did in fact put the small plastic statue near our bedside.  An old, sopping wet, very skinny Portuguese dog DID appear out of nowhere the following day but I’m sure that was just a weird coinky-dink.)

Anyhoo, my Mom has been known to consult a Haitian psychic about my fertility issues and order three small bottles of ‘tonic’ that I was supposed to drink each morning.  You could say I was an agreeable, compliant daughter, but really I just can’t take her whining so I am usually up for these little exercises in futility.  (FU-tility, not FER-tility, just to be clear.) 

So I drank the vile brown liquid as recommended, and the stuff was preserved in so much alcohol it was like doing a shot of Jager before work every morning.  I’m lucky I didn’t end up with a DUI on my way to work.

I’ve seen the infamous Key Master and also tried the upside down martini glass thing and let’s not forget a session with Whirley Gig Joe.

This was years ago, when we first started trying, and Joe used his dowsing rod to discover what was interfering with my getting pregnant.  Apparently I had some traumatic experiences with having children in past lives (and really, who hasn’t?) and so in this life I’m petrified to have kids because I might have to sell them or eat them or something.  I think it might also have something to do with a horse but I can’t quite remember.

There was also the time my Mom had me come to her office and get hooked up to the Machine.  My Mom always has a new Machine which will cure anything that ails you.  So she hooked me up to this machine (hey, it was better than being at work!) and I looked like I was 1) taking a lie detector test and 2) facing my own imminent execution. 

Wires, electrodes, the whole nine yards. 

The Machine is taking some kind of reading when there’s a knock at the door.  Of course, I assumed that since I looked like something that just Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, she wouldn’t open the door.  Once again, I greatly underestimated my Mom and her tolerance for humiliating her children.

The door flew open and there was the Fed Ex guy with a delivery. I guess it goes to the fact that he had clearly seen some weird shit in my Mom’s office before, because he simply said, "Oh, hello" and asked for a signature without blinking an eye, as if seeing a woman strapped to a beeping, blinking Machine with electrodes taped to her head was perfectly normal. 

These little anecdotes are just some examples of how my Mom has tried to drive me insane help me in the past.  But there is one item that she has lorded over me for the last few years…an item so reviled, so feared that both my sister and I speak of it in hushed tones…it’s like a totem of evilness so frightening, we do not like to acknowledge that it exists.  Since we’ve never actually seen it, we liken it to the legends of Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster or how Katie (oh excuse me, Kate) got pregnant and by whom.

And yet, it does exist.  It is real.  And this terrifying object is called…

DUHN

DUHN

DUHN…

THE BABY FILE.

[Cue screaming.]

Yes, the Baby File is a collection of articles and newsletters and conference notes that my Mother has collected over the last several years. She has threatened promised us for years that whomever becomes pregnant first will be the proud recipient of this file.

This file contains articles about supplements we must take (they will SAVE the baby!), supplements we must never take (they will KILL the baby!), tests we must do, tests we must avoid, vaccinations, autism, birth defects, eating disorders, mercury poisoning, the dangers of microwave ovens, the healing powers of certain crystals, the impact of high tension wires and the critical importance of fish oil.

And that’s just the first 20 pages!

This file would be the most horrific, anxiety-producing reading material ever compiled.  Yet in my Mother’s mind, it is her gift to the daughter who gets pregnant first.

She has faxed my sister seventeen pages from the File in the last week alone. 

Since she is pregnant first, SHE is the proud keeper of the Baby File.

And that my friends, THAT, is a frigging bright side if I’ve ever seen one.