The Lion Ate Per Albert etc.

It wasn’t til I reached my 20’s that I learned to really appreciate having an Irish mom. I love her accent, her quirks, her superstitions, her sense of humor, I love it all! Her road rage is absolutely hysterical “Ye shite ye!” she’d yell at the guy who cut her off. There are certain things we can never do in our household because of bad luck, like killing a spider and putting a brand new pair of shoes on the kitchen table. And if there’s bird shit on your car than you shouldn’t clean it off because it’s a sign of good luck. One time when my mother was out, I woke up to a bird flying around the house. It had come in through the pipe behind the clothes dryer. I openend up all the doors and windows and chased it around with a broom. At one point I looked around and saw that there was bird shit everywhere. I called her to tell her about it, and she was like “All over me good furniture!?! Clean it up!” I replied “I can’t mom, it’s good luck.” You could be bleeding to death and she wouldn’t let you inside “Not on me good carpet!”

This morning, my mom and I were talking about our very spoiled cat spotty. She said “Spotty’s got a sore ear.” I looked at her and smiled and she goes “You don’t believe me? She does!” I said “It’s always the ear.” We went into fits of laughter remembering how when my niece was a baby, and my brother would mention how she was screaming and crying or throwing a fit, and my mother would say it’s because the baby had an ear infection. The words ‘ear infection’ came to be code for ‘temper tantrum.’ My brother would call up and say “She’s having an ear infection again.” With us, now that we’re older, all of our problems stem from smoking. “Mom, my toe hurts.” “It’s because you smoke too much.” Anyways, mom decided it was time for spotty to have her nails clipped. She said “We need to clip her nails.” Then while giggling she yells “Hey Bob!, Come in here and clip spotty’s nails, Lisa said she’d hold her for you.” I imagined myself being a scratching post, and gave her a ‘gee thanks’ look, and she laughed some more. Being the good daughter that I am, I did it. It’s hard to be mad at her with her sly Irish charm.