December 6, 1986 or the day I thought I was going to be sent to military school...

It's approaching Mother's Day, and if you've followed this blog at all (which probably means you know me, and if not, please log off creepy stalker!!) you know a couple of things: 1) my mother meant the world to me, and was one of my best friends, and 2) she's deceased, and has been for quite some time. If you think, "hey, it's has to get easier," well, you'd be wrong about that as well. I've been waxing sentimental for a couple of posts, and I just needed to get some joy in this process...

Christmas season in my home was always the same. My mother would wake up on Saturday morning, do whatever housework she felt needed to be done, and then she would go shopping. Probably a more accurate description was she went looking, as I had gone on a variety of the excursions. They usually involved going into every store in every mall she could get to from whenever she left in the AM until some time around midnight, as the malls are trying to fleece you, and it's easier to do so if they can be open for longer periods of time. And it's like clockwork- every Saturday. It was will-crushing when I was younger, as it seemed she never, and I mean never came home with anything that even looked like it might be a gift for me...
...so when my mom announced she was going shopping, and to not expect her for awhile, I was fully aware that I had the entire house to myself for the day (as my sister was a bit younger, she always had to go with Ma Dukes). And when you're 15 years old, you can't spell debauchery, but you sure as hell can get into some. The first thing I did was call over a couple of my boys to enjoy the day, watch a little television, play some video games, and oh yeah...
...I offer this caveat: when I was young, I smoked some marijuana. Some would say I smoked a lot, and some would say I didn't. In my high school days, those that might indicate that I didn't smoke a lot would include names such as B. Real from Cypress Hill, Keith Richards, Cheech and Chong, George Bush, etc. Obviously, all stunning potheads. But I digress...
...so I invite my friends over, a couple of the guys come and one girl- we call this a sausage fest, generally, but since the chances of any of us having sex with her were around the chances of Stephen Hawking getting up and kicking me in the balls, we never really gave it much thought. The plan: smoke some of this fine pot I happened to have (how I got it is referred to in an earlier post- don't tell your mother!), eat some food, play some video games and be out of the house by 5pm. This gave the house plenty of time to air out, especially if I decided to cook something, which, based on the activity mentioned, usually meant I was going to be hungry, and thus, would almost always cook. My dad is out of town, but even if he was, he was never really around, choosing to spend most of his time in the den if Ma Dukes wasn't around, but because he was in Cleveland, or Milwaukee, or Orlando or wherever in the hell he was for that weekend, this was a non-starter...
...everyone shows up, and we decided to be a little bolder than normal. Usually, we would smoke out of items that released as little smoke as possible (dugout bats, home-made apple pipes). But since I knew, and I mean I knew my moms wasn't going to be home for hours, and I knew I was going to cook to cover up the smell, and because I'm sometimes, for lack of a better description, a little fucking stupid, I decide to let a friend roll a joint to smoke. This is clearly unnecessary, as the coffee table in my living room looks like a scene from Sir Smoke-A-Lot's spot in Half Baked. Apparently, he'd just watched Cheech and Chong's Up in Smoke, so the al-jazzeri he rolled was fat like Kirstie Alley (so it was fat, yet simultaneously unattractive). We sparked it up, passed it around a couple of times, and before we knew what happened, we were all almost passed out on the couch, wanting to play video games, but not being sure I had enough energy to actually mobilize, get up, get a game in the machine, find the controller, well, you get the picture.I decide that, since it is my house, I should get up to put the game in. Mario Brothers. You. Better. Recognize...
...so there we are, sitting in the living room of my house, joint burning in an ashtray (my own, neither of my parents smoked cigarettes, which is the only reason one might have an ashtray in their home), absolutely train-wrecked. The parents are gone for some block of time, and so it's all about video games, pizza rolls and some chill time with my people...that is until I hear a set of keys rattling in the door...
"Did you hear that? Sounds like keys."
I go through the mental Rolodex, so I can figure out what this actually means. I'm not gonna lie, it was a bit disconcerting. Dad is out of town, actually out of the state. My sister doesn't have a key, as she's not even 8 years old yet. That pretty much exhausts the rest of the names in that Rolodex. This leaves only one person: my mother, Ma Dukes. And from all the knowledge going into the scenario, it seems like this going to have some fallout. My mother had almost no patience for what she called "stupid shit" and no matter how many times I ran this through my head, I couldn't come up with a reason that this wasn't going to shoot straight to the top of the "stupid shit" list. So as the keys, keep a rattling at the door, one of my friends looks over to me, and gives me a crisp salute. I ask him his reasoning, and his answer was a cold as it was cold-blooded like Rick James (as opposed to burn-a-kidnapped-bitch-with-a-crackpipe Rick James), "You're going to Military school." His sarcasm notwithstanding, there was a fair amount of concern of how this was going to be handled. I was pretty sure there would be a clearing of the house, and a hellified was-whipping, but the more I thought about it, there may well not be a clearing of the room before the beating, and so now I'm getting really worried....
...finally, after what seemed to be an eternity, the door opens, and as it does, smoke bellows out of our little hotbox like Spicoli's van on Fast Times at Ridgemont High. At this point, the secret is out, the whole house smells like Otto's Jacket, there's a 18" water pipe on the coffee table, as well as not a felonious amount of marijuana, at least an amount that will make you not want to get shit done, and there are five of us on the couch/love seat, and we look like an ad for DARE, because if you wanted to look like burned out stoners, we were getting it done, no doubt about it. Mom walks in the living room, and gives me what can only be described as a "death glare" as she walks through the house. I was assuming she was intending on picking up something to whip that ass, and then go shopping, after she sent me to that rehab farm school out in Utah, or to some place where pushups and running were legitimate responses for, well, really just about anything- all other issues can be resolved with a sock and a couple of Oranges. When she returns, she looks at me, looks at the bong, which has a bowl in it for the winner of the video game Mario Brothers. Mom looks back at me, at the bowl again and she fucking hits. You read that right. My mother hits the bowl. As I'm watching this, watching my mind get blown and world being rocked. My mouth fell to the floor, to the point of absolute shock. The next thing I notice, Ma Dukes is blowing smoke out of her lungs, and places the water pipe back in place. The only words she says before she departs is (we need to get Borders on) "we'll talk about this when I get home...
...there was a moment of stupified silence, as I at this time realized that mom did not clear the house, and that i had friends who were 1000x more stunned and surprised about the scenario. This was actually not spoken about again, and it pretty much ended the smoke session for the day...upon mom's return, her main complaint was my smoking in the living room (how would I explain this to the church pastor or the principal of your school?), and that I should "smoke in the den, like your dad." She then gives me a key to the den, and tells me not to tell dad, and to make sure not to go in the den when he's here. I placed the den key next to my other den key, and chuckled about the irony...