My Mother and I do not get along and never have. I tried to kill her twice when I was a child. Self-preservation. My Mother hit everybody, including my Father. I respect her. I love her. It is complicated. I wish it were otherwise. Rest in peace, Polka Queen.
We were sitting in the hospital cafeteria, and my Dad was in end-of-life hospice care on another floor. I broke the news to Mom that I was doing stand-up. “I wrote a joke about you, Mom.”
THE JOKE — My Mother had a unique system of sex education. Around the time of your 12th birthday, my Mother would sneak up behind you with this big stick and whack you with it just as hard as she could. WHACK!
You pick yourself up off the pavement and say, “Ma, what was that for?”
“That is for thinking about sex.”
All kids are lawyers, so you say, “But Ma, I wasn’t thinking about sex.”
And my Mother said, “Oh yeah. Well, that’s for when you are thinking about sex.”
END OF JOKE
Never saw my Mother laugh that hard before. I am not sure how I feel about that. Always gets great laughs onstage.
