It was an ordinary morning, or so I thought. It began like an ordinary morning: wake up, eat breakfast, brush teeth, get dressed, gather belongings, and rush out the door. The day was starting off nicely. My curly, unruly hair was behaving well, and I was wearing my favorite dress with my white go-go boots.
Then there she came. Pajama Mama entered the scene to drive me to school. I have an awesome, caring mother. It just so happened, however, that my awesome, caring mother did not care how she looked when she drove me to school. It is not a big deal, I suppose, because she never got out of the car. No one would witness the vividly colored stripes as vividly as I am witnessing them at this moment. But it was not the striped duster with snaps that caught my eye first. I was bending over to pick up my book bag when the familiar, tattered slippers entered into my line of vision. My eyes were drawn upward by the stripes. The stripes led me straight to her head, and there perched on top of her head was some kind of hair curler cover with petals all over it. It did not seem to serve its purpose. I could still see the curlers—the huge curlers so big that I imagined crawling right through them.
Now my mother was no bon-bon eating, soap-watching, stay-in-her-PJs kind of mom. She was a working mom who dressed nicely every day. She just did not do so until after she dropped me off at school.
We got into our VW beetle, our paint-faded, hole-in –the-floorboard, beetle. I became quite gifted in anticipating water holes. Water holes meant wet feet or clothes; sometimes, a wet face, if you happen to be intrigued by watching the road move beneath you. So here we are: Pajama Mama with her coat of many colors and me in my go-go boots that I wished could walk me right out of this car.
Every morning as we ventured to school in our humble little VW, one intersection became my mother’s object of wrath. Cars in the turn lane would mix with cars that went straight. She would honk her horn and yell, “This is a turn lane!” I always wondered when she would snap. I no longer wonder. She snapped. Pajama Mama transformed into Mother Road Rage in a matter of seconds. I saw a whirlwind of stripes and petals flying out of that VW right there in the middle of that busy intersection. I ducked down to the floorboard with the hole and wished that I could fit through it. This was as embarrassing as having a friend over to play when your underwear were hanging on the clothes line.
We arrived safely at school. I looked around and decided that no witnesses followed us. Elated, I exited the vehicle and waved good-bye.
The next week there was a turn arrow painted on the lane.
My mother had never settled when she had a gripe. If she did not like it, she fixed it. She had many grievances during my childhood: dented trash cans that prompted phone calls to the sanitation department, letters to various agencies for various reasons, calls to our schools for her perceived mistreatment or yelling at speeders flying down our street.
She wore that duster with the snaps for many years. It was a comfortable old friend. The vivid stripes faded, but the memories are as big as the curlers.
