Thoughts of my mother.

Just had to make it even and write about my mother today.  She was mean, the power behind the throne and don't make her mad.

She was a bit odd at times.  LLoyd Bentsen was this Texan that was the Secretary of the Treasury (early '90's), when the first notes came out with his signature my mother sent out $1 bills with a letter saying what it was and who the signer is.  None of the relatives in New York sent a letter or called to say thank you.  So when the $20's came out she sent another letter saying that she was going to send them but since nobody cared about the ones she didn't bother sending out the bigger notes.

My brother Bryan is mentally retarded and you know that saying about getting between a female bear and her cub?  Some salesman was at the shop selling something and then he made a joke with a short bus in it.  Another salesman told us that this guy was afraid of her, my mother still bought his product but only because their was no other dealer.  Keep in mind that my mother was under 5' tall and not in the best shape.

They used to get homeless people coming up to the shop and begging for money.  My mother wouldn't give them money but she would offer them cash if they swept up the place.  Some did and some didn't.

When I was twelve my mother told me I could work at their shop for $0.50/hour or I could work at the shop for free (minimum wage was $3.35/hour at the time).  I took the check, and she took taxes out.  I also found out that child labor laws don't apply to your family in the family business.

I was in high school and didn't have to work some Saturday morning, so I stayed up late the night before and read a book.  No problem.  I go to bed about 4ish and she wakes me up at 7ish asking me if I knew what the most common surname is.  I mumbled Chang (I don't know why I knew that) and without saying a word she got up and left my room.  I went back to sleep.  Her choir leader would give out trivia questions for fun and my mother took pride in getting all of them right.  The Chang one was giving her major problems though and then when she finally had the answer I already knew it.  Apparently, she was a bit annoyed that I knew it, so the next group of questions she had came to me first.

On Sundays she would count the money for her church.  All of the bills that were folded into an origami design she would buy and reverse engineer in order to learn how they did it.  I used to be a barback (bartender's helper) in a topless bar and would get a lot of $2 bills.  She would buy them from me and save them or sell them to her money collecting friends or go to the grocery store and buy $50 worth of groceries and pay for them with 2's.  The cashier asked her where did you get all of those 2's?  With a smirk my mother said "Wouldn't you like to know".

I do wonder what she would think of this blog.