On May 1, I received an email that the audio version of Don’t Lick the Minivan had gone on sale. As I took my first bite of an English muffin smeared with peanut butter, I pressed play.
I immediately started to laugh, mostly at the oddity of hearing a professional read my words with perfect enunciation. My husband chuckled too. Vivian asked why we were laughing. I explained. She listened to the book’s opening. She’s been dying to read Don’t Lick the Minivan but I won’t let her; I figure there are better ways to discover that Santa Claus isn’t real than by reading your mom’s funny-ish memoir.
William wandered over, hoping I was watching a nature video of some sort. As he approached my laptop, the reader was finishing the book’s preamble, which includes the story behind the original title, Get That Train off Your P*nis.
Following this phrase, she read: “And that was the moment. The moment when I realized there may be a lot of crap that comes out of your kids’ butts, but when you’re a parent, almost as much comes out of your mouth.”
William looked at me in horror and—with perfect enunciation—said, “That. Woman. Is. Sick.”
I choked on peanut butter. “That woman,” I said, “is your mom.”
“Yeah, Will,” Viv explained. “That woman is reading mom’s book aloud. So it’s really mom saying that.”
Will walked away, no doubt counting down the days until he gets access to his therapy fund.
~~~
What bizarre incidents in your childhood could have sent you (or your parents) to their therapy fund?
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In other news, there’s a contest up on GoodReads where you can win an autographed hardcopy of Don’t Lick the Minivan with a single click. Check it out.
Some of my kids have learned the hard (gross) way of what a “period” really is. Grand failure on my part to lock the bathroom door!
Funny! Mine would have to be the talk on intimacy. Not enough to know anything, but that it was GREAT (emphasis by my mother) but there was a mumble that it was even better to wait…. Truly a devastating 30 second sex talk for a 10 or 11 year old….lol
Good Luck Saturday!
That is funny!
I just hung up with my son who at 23 is still battling allergies. He just informed me of a new study where parents in Sweden were divided into two groups. One had to disinfect pacifiers when they hit the floor, the other put them in their mouths before giving them back to their babies. The ultra clean group’s kids ended up with eczema and asthma the other groups kids lived to be 150. Well they may be around 15 right now. Anyway, he asked what I did with his. I said there was no way I was going to put anything that hit the Church, store or ground in my mouth… one for the fund…
I am so excited for your books arrival~
Unfortunately, my parents didn’t have a therapy fund for me. I had to pay it all out of pocket. And today I am broke.
Ah ha ha ha, how do they always manage to put us in our place? Congrats on your book, BTW!
So, I of course entered the contest and will read your book whether I win or not – BUT don’t let that stop you for selecting me as a winner *wink, wink*
I still haven’t gotten over waking up my mom early one morning and telling her the tooth fairy forgot to leave me any money, to which she answered, “Get a dime out of my billfold.” Crushed. Crushed….
Oh – we have slipped up on this so many times. Now, it’s standard procedure at our house to wait a couple of days because the Tooth Fairy is such a Flake! We put on this grand performance, yelling out the windows and such, hoping to make an impact.
I’m just bopping in to tell you how much I love Will and Viv. Best VW ever.
OK, my Mom is tough as nails. When I was growing up, we had a phone to answer the downstairs doorbell of the apartment building. I lifted the receiver with too much gusto, broke the lamp Mom had above the system, and cut my hand quite nicely. I am bleeding, Mom just looked at my hand and yelled, “You broke my lamp and you’re bleeding on my floor!
Those Brooklyn mothers…
My mom once heard me and my sister tell an “inappropriate” joke and made us repeat it to her. Mortifying. Can’t wait to read your book! Congrats!
Congrats on the book! Hurrah, cheers (etc) from New Zealand…print AND audio book – cool!
I’ll be buying a copy to give to my brother and his wife – 2 kids (8 yo/5 yo) who come up with phrases like ‘Muuuum, Uncle Matthew used swear words while he was talking to Dad!’. (Demands some sort of comeback, but then I have to explain what ‘eavesdrop’ means. Sigh.)
All I can say is that my sister burst in on my parents one night, thinking they were hanging pictures in the middle of the night!
My future therapy moments were not nearly so funny. They were mostly tragic. Congratulations on the book and good luck on Saturday!
That must be SUCH a trip to listen to your own book. I’m waiting for the Canadian accent version.
I love your sense of humor. I raised three boys. We had our moments, but I never wrote them down to remember all of them.
I’m going to put this on my facebook page.
I nearly peed myself after reading this….Hehehehehe….
xx
Sooz
OMG I love it! I can hear him say that all horrified. I was reading excerpts from my own funny-ish memoir to my family and my sister demanded a pseudonym! Naaaah.
Thank God for kids, right?