Bubble Gum Babies

I expect to be invited to at least two showers this year, one baby and one bride (not the same gal in case you wondered).  I hope the hosts are too young or too sophisticated to remember bubble gum babies and toilet tissue tiaras.

I always participate in shower games, but let's face it.  Most of them are at best funny ice breakers, like "please and thank you".  At their worst, they are sticky and somewhat infantile.

In case you aren't in the know, bubble gum babies are made from chewing wads of Bazooka until soft, then forming it into some semblance of an infant.  For toilet paper tiaras ("take as much as you need"), you get a length of paper and form a headpiece for the bride to be.  Add to this the paper plate with ribbons poked through for a bouquet....well, it's all in good fun.

When my sister-in-law-to-be gave me a shower some forty-one years ago, I requested no toilet tissue head wear.  Instead my creative friend came up with a challenge to name as many things as you could think of in your kitchen that began with the letter C.  Mind you, these are Hubby's relatives.  Most of them I had never met. Some seemed very tight...lipped.  My mother got the word from Sheila to liven things up a bit.  Heaven help us when those two got a burr in the seat.  Mom started out with coffee...cookies...chocolate....COCKROACHES....you could've heard a pin drop for a moment.  While Sheila convulsed with glee, I hid under the nearest chair.  Mom-in-law to be tittered.  Some of the ladies' eyes bulged, others hid a grin.  One got hiccups.  Mom smiled innocently and continued her list.

Sometime I will tell you more of Mom's shenanigans.  Really? OK, one more.

She and I occasionally went to bingo with Aunt Marje and Uncle Don at St. Mary's on Friday night.  I played nine cards, Mom had three, Aunt Marje and Uncle Don had maybe seventy between them along with a huge box of old-fashioned red bingo chips.  We ate fries and sundaes, drank coffee and Coke by the gallon. Sometimes we won.

Uncle parked way at the end of the parking lot.  Being the youngest, I trotted ahead, his keys in my hand.  Behind me I heard a stage whisper, "Marilyn! MARILYN!"  I turned to see....Mom, her scarf tied like a babushka, walking  like the Hunchback of Notre Dame with a Grandpa McCoy limp.  She was waving Aunt Marje's cane in the air.  In a voice that carried to the Rockies, I heard,  "HEY! MARILYN! WAIT FOR YOUR MUDDER!!!"  Cripes, Ma.

I became wary of taking Mom anyplace that required decorum.  Showers made me shudder, especially when those blue eyes twinkled.  Lunch was an adventure.  We and several of her friends were politely asked to leave Pizza Hut one day, not because of exuberance but because they wanted to set up for the supper rush. I left a big tip.

As I go to the graduations, baby showers and birthday parties this year, I'll miss taking Mom and her mischievous and unpredictable sense of humor.

Besides, her bubble gum babies always took first prize.