Beech Tree News Network

One night last week, when my granddaughter, Sabria, was staying over, she and her Papa, Garey, continued their earlier aggravating-each-other session over into my bed time.  I had been lying on the couch waiting for the activity to subside before I ventured that way.  The volume seemed to be increasing, especially on Sabria’s side of things, so I spread the couch throw over my legs, fluffed my pillow and settled in.  It wasn’t long before I heard Sabria walking through the kitchen and heading my way.
    “Gee, what are you doing down here?” she asked, “Don’t you know it’s time for bed?”
    “I’m just resting until you two get through aggravating each other,” I said.
    “It’s okay,” she said, “You won’t bother us.  Come on to bed.”
    As soon as we got to the bedroom, Sabria started shaking Garey, who was pretending to be asleep.  “How do you like me now!” she kept repeating over and over.  “Not very much,” Garey responded.  We all laughed then Sabria announced it was time for us to go to sleep.  She had just pulled the cover up under her chin, when Garey leaned over and started singing in her ear.
    “Papa, stop that!  I’m trying to sleep!” she said.  Of course, Garey didn’t stop it.
    “When is Mama Ag coming to visit?” she asked, in a nonchalant sort of way.
    “Probably in two weeks,” Garey answered.
    “Well, I have you know, I’m going to tell her you wouldn’t stop singing in my ear when I was trying to sleep.”
    Sabria had just informed her grandfather that she was going to tell on him to his mama.  Garey is 69 years of age.  Garey’s mom, Agnes is eighty-nine.  None of that mattered to Sabria.  She knew the seriousness of the phrase, “I’m gonna tell Mama,” or its variation, “I’m gonna tell your Mama,” and she intended to use its full weight to get Garey to do what she wanted.  Nothing strikes fear in the human heart like those two phrases. 
    My stepmom swung a mean fly swatter, and any utterance of, “I’m gonna tell Mom,” had me scrambling to arbitrate a settlement that would save my back side.  My stepsister taught me the meaning of blackmail and extortion.  I gave up candy, crayons and coloring books, as well as giving her many piggy-back rides around the house, and most of the things she was going to tell on me for, I hadn’t even done in the first place.  She could be very convincing, however, and I didn’t want to take the chance that Mom would believe her over me.  (It makes sense that she grew up to be a lawyer.) 
    In Garey’s family, he was the one who aggravated his younger sister, Charlotte (no surprise there).  They would get home in the afternoons before their mom would, and one afternoon, Charlotte packed a suitcase and told Garey she was leaving home—I forget the reason.  She was still in elementary school at the time.  Garey took the suitcase away from her, hid it, and told Charlotte he was going to show it to their mom when she returned home from work.  No matter how much Charlotte pleaded with him, he wouldn’t let her have it.  He only gave it back to her when he heard his mom’s car in the driveway.
    I remember hearing a comedian say once that you don’t get the full experience of being a parent until you have at least two children, because you don’t know what it’s like to have to constantly settle arguments between two kids.  You know, the important arguments like: She touched me; he looked at me; she called me stupid; and I had it first.  I heard my kids yell “Mom” so much when they were growing up that I threatened to change my name to Dad.
 A lot of times, my kids yelled “Mom” and when I asked, “What do you want?” they’d answer, “Oh nothing.”  I knew what that meant.  It had been a bluff.  I had used that bluff and had it used on me when I was a kid.  If you wanted something you thought you were entitled to or someone to stop doing something you didn’t want them to do, and you knew your mom was in earshot, all you had to do was yell her name, and you would get immediate results.  Most moms recognize that bluff, but they’re so relieved that they don’t have to settle one more argument, they ignore it.
You know, I think all our U.S. ambassadors to foreign nations should have to be moms before they can be assigned to the posts.  A good mom can get to the heart of a conflict pretty quickly and usually come up with a compromise that will suit both sides.  Kim Jong Un, of North Korea, must not have had a very good mom.  Either that or he was an only child, and there was nobody to tell on him.