Cotton, peas, your friends, your seat, your nose… There are a lot of things you can pick. Family isn’t one of them. Disclaimer: Life is crazy, people are crazier and my family… well they get the crazy award if there is one. This is a work of ‘true fiction’ inspired by family. The names have been changed to protect the guilty. CAUTION: They cuss.

Me: Look at this old photograph I found the other day mama. That’s back when you smoked and had curly hair.

Mama: You mean back before you drove me to pulling it out by the roots.

Me: You still have a lot of hair mother.

Mama: Not nearly as much and what I do have has been pulled straight as a board.

Me: I’m sorry I worried you.

Mama: You still worry me.

Me: Why? I have been an upstanding citizen for years now.

Mama: I’ve noticed you’re not working on your promotions.

Me: I thought you said relations, so I worked on that.

Mama: So you’re gettin’ plenty of sex then?

Me: Yes ma’am.

Mama: Okay now get to work on your promotions.

Me: You want me to promote my relations?

Mama: Hell no. You know what I mean.

Me: You told me a few weeks ago I should get back to writing.

Mama: So how is the latest story coming along?

Me: I’ve got a few thousand words written.

Mama: Yep. Same 3,449 you had last month I bet. I never see you online.

Me: I don’t see you on line either.

Mama: Don’t get sassy with me little girl. You know my computer is slow and I don’t have all day to wait on a single page to load. I’m busy.

Me: I know you are. Between watching Jeopardy and feeding the dog I don’t know how you manage to have dinner ready by 4 PM much less find time to get online.

Mama: I get on there once or twice a week but you know that computer is so old.

Me: What about your laptop? The one you got for your birthday, it’s fairly new.

Mama: I don’t like the way it feels – I don’t know why you girls even got that for me.

Me: Because you asked for it?

Mama: I wanted something that would surf faster.

Me: Your ISP is the problem mother, not the computer.

Mama: If my ESP was working I wouldn’t need a computer.

Me: No, I said your ISP. That is your internet service provider. You need to upgrade.

Mama: I can’t get anything but dial up where I live.

Me: All of your neighbors have high speed internet.

Mama: Big deal. Your brother still has to walk out in the back yard to use his cell phone.

Me: You could get an internet dish.

Mama: I already have a dish.

Me: Do they offer an internet service package?

Mama: That’s thirty dollars more a month.

Me: That doesn’t sound bad.

Mama: I think I just need another computer.

Me: That wouldn’t help.

Mama: That attitude right there is why you’re not selling more books.

Me: Why do you say that?

Mama: Well instead of blogging all day and worrying about what I’m doing you could be attending book signings. I saw one in last week’s paper.

Me: Yeah, I saw that. They invited four or five authors – I wasn’t one of them.

Mama: You should go anyway.

Me: Hey, that would be fun. You and I could go and check out the new books.

Mama: I don’t have time to lollygag around some bookstore. I want you to go – you could share a table with some nice girl and maybe make a real friend. You need to interact more with living people.

Me: You make it sound like I hang out in cemeteries.

Mama: How do you know those online people are who they say they are?

Me: I don’t know if they are honest but I feel pretty sure they are alive.

Mama: Might just be your computer talking back to you.

Me: You should write about that.

Mama: Might be a woman pretending to be a gay man.

Me: Hey, I heard a story like that. There was a-

Mama: Shh!  Alex Trebek is talking.