FIRE!!!!!!!!!

We have had a woodstove the majority of my life. It was only recently that it was removed when my parents renovated their house.

Picture it, North Carolina, winter during the 80's...I was a baby. This means that my mother acted even more like a nut because she was always terrified and over protective of me. She had emptied the ashes of the woodstove into the ash bucket earlier that day. Finally the time came to dump the ash bucket so that my mother could refill it. A few minutes after dumping the ashes she noticed the ground smoldering at the dump site. PANICKED! She called the Fire Dept!

Two things to consider:

1. A small town like King, NC has only a volunteer fire dept due to lack of need..
2. Because it's a small town boring and dull and it's volunteer, every call that comes thru seems to warrant EVERY VOLUNTEER as well as EVERY ENGINE AND PIECE OF FIRE FIGHTING EQUIPMENT!

Luckily, or not so luckily considering the embarrassment that awaited our family one of my father's customer's has a store no more than two blocks away, as you might have guessed, he is/was a volunteer firefighter. Therefore he arrived on scene rather quickly. The fire, which was in back of the house, was stomped out and beaten out with a mop head that belonged to my mother, in just enough time for this man to get back to the front of the house and greet all 16 fire trucks, ems, and police cars.

Yep, that's my mom!

Random Mom quote # 759

"We southerners might not have any teeth but we're real sweet!"

Random mom quote # 093

"I ain't smart but I ain't stupid"

PULL MY FINGER....

It's stuck once again! Ok, so I'm not really sure what it is about my poor mom's fingers, but she seems to constantly get them stuck! Way back in the day, I think I was still playing T-Ball, we were on our way to the Rec (King Recreation Acres) where we all of our t-ball/softball games were held. My sister was still a baby naturally if I was T-Ball age, that made her between 1 and 2 years old, so baby wipes were always lingering about. My mom needed a baby wipe for some odd reason, and it was imperative for her to get one while she was driving. Well, as they sometimes do, the baby wipes had slipped down inside the container. I'm nt sure why my mother didn't just take off the lid and push them back thru the little pronged opening, but it doesn't matter, she didn't. INSTEAD, she decided to stick her finger into the pronged opening and tried to retrieve them that way. Uh oh, as my nephew would say, "she tuck" That's right, poor mom was stuck again...this time inside the opening of a baby wipes container. The prongs then began to get painful as they pressed into her finger, causing the finger to swell. My mom desperately tried to remove the container to no prevail. Now, Dawn (sister) is screaming, mom's trying to drive and having a hard time doing it, and I sit there at age 5 in awe of what's going on around me!

Luckily, one of my friend's dad's carefully removed the container by cutting it with a pocket knife. Whew, no skin lost this time! Good job mom!

Random Mom Quote # 367

"If I was eatin shit...somebody would want a bite!"

Sticky Fingers!

Once upon a time my mother and her best friend Betty-Sue (you can tell we live in the south can't you?) were going to the store. Both families had gathered over that Bob and Betty's house for day and a run to the store was in order. Earlier that day my dad was doing a little repair work on the turn signal in his car. His instructions to mom before she drove his car to the store, "Shirley, don't touch the turn signal, I put super glue on it" He continued to reiterate the importance of not touching the turn signal for emphasis!

My mother's slightly annoyed response, "Paul! Don't talk to me like I'm a child! I'm not stupid"

....moments later while driving down the road my mom was about to make a turn and the first thing she did was...use the turn signal. Quickly realizing her error, she says, "OH SHOOT! Paul told me not to touch the turn signal!" She then grips the steering wheel tightly hoping to deter any further instinctive attempts to use the turn signal.

TOO LATE! The damage has been done...

Not long after my mom began using the death grip on the steering wheel she needed to make another turn, it was then she discovered she could not make the turn....because she had successfully superglued herself to the steering wheel!

As you probably imagine, this made the time of the trip double in size because my mom had to work her way back to the house by only using right turns. Betty-sue never laughed, she sat there calm as my mom was in a panic worrying how on earth she would ever free herself from the steering wheel.

Finally, the return back to Bob and Betty's house. Betty-Sue walks in, and my dad questions her, "where the hell have you guys been? thought you were just running to the store? and where the hell's my wife?"

Betty-Sue dropped to the floor, in hysterics! Laughing so hard she could't even speak, she could only point in the direction of the car. My dad walks outside to see my poor mother, looking ever so pitiful, still attached to the steering wheel!

A butcher knife, a slight loss of skin, and a whole lot of laughter later...my mom is finally freed!

Thanks to Betty-Sue, who happened to be working for the local paper at the time, this story, made the news!

"Paul don't talk to me like a child! I'm not stupid!" :)

random mom fact #122

She at one time thought that ringworm was an ACTUAL WORM inside the skin, so when she noticed that she had ringworm one time, she cut it out with a knife! OUCH!

In the beginning....

God created the heavens and the earth...then he created my mother! There has never been, nor will there ever be another like her! For years I have entertained friends, family members and coworkers with stories of my mother. "Laughter through tears is my favorite emotion" Trudy - Steel Magnolias, and believe me, you'll wipe your eyes because you are laughing so hard if you lend me your ear for just a little bit. For this very reason I decided to take a break from my own meandering existence...my Nervous Chatter, and to start this little blog dedicated to only stories of my mother.

I've always demanded that I live in a sitcom. The Simpsons, Family Guy, Arrested Development, Archie Bunker, shoooooot none of these clowns got anything on the Bornrongs! And tho my entire family is comparable to such nonsense, my mother is the Queen B and she is the papier-mache that holds the humor together. She is the living breathing Rose Nylund.

So mom, this one's for you. Thanks for 25 years of love and laughter!

I believe that without actually knowing my mother, I need to break you in kinda slowly. Too much at once could cause an overload or a power failure. For starters, just the basics.

My family resides in a small town (population 6000) in the south known as King, North Carolina. My father's family is from the north, but good ole mom was born and raised in Raleigh, NC. She moved to King after marrying my father in 1977.

Mom is 5'2, with glasses (which must double as a hearing aid because she always swears up and down that she can't hear anything if she has them off), a goofy smile, and a thick southern accent! She is 53 years old for the second year because she spent all of last year thinking she was 53 when in actuality, she wasn't. She loves sweet tea, fried chicken, and BINGO!

*dislaimer: Before I begin with the stories I want to make something perfectly clear, this blog is not intended to make people believe my mom is stupid, not intelligent or anything of the sort. I simply share these stories because my mother is a funny woman, but most importantly she is an amazing woman that has worked extremely hard to be the best mother and grandmother any kids could ever ask for. She is smart, charming, loving and the greatest woman that ever lived! I love my mom and I'm very thankful for her....now get ready to laugh a little!*

Mom is #1 when it comes to trivia...

Q: "Mom, who's the president of the United States?" (asked during the Regan years)
Mom's A: "George Washington"

(she gets half points for this one, he was the first president hehe)

Q: "Mom, where's the Statue of Liberty located?"
Mom's A: "Oh honey, that's in Raleigh in capital square with all them other statues"

(raleigh, nyc what's the difference? tomato, tomatto)

...during a game of Scattegories

Name a president with the letter H: Mom wrote, HENRY FORD (what's with all the mustangs in the motorcade?)
Name a president with the letter M: Mom wrote, MARTIN LUTHER KING (in a perfect world)

Q: "Hey mom, what's a boner?"
Mom's A: "That's like when you need something from the store real bad and you rush to get there but right as you get there it closes!"

(Um mom, pretty sure that's a bummer!)

Q: "Mom, what's a blowjob?"

Mom's A: "Oh, that's when you are driving down the road in your car and the tire pops."

(pretty sure that's a blow OUT mom, but nice try! )

That's all for now! You need to take this time to let it all absorb. But stayed tuned! Oh believe me...there's more!

Random mom fact #236

To this day mom can't pronouncee word eyebrow