My Mother, The Outlaw.

It doesn't seem like my mother has been gone for almost eight years. Of course, I've been saying something similar every year since she died, and I suspect I'll be saying it for a long time to come. I don't think it's something you ever stop saying when talking about loved ones that are gone from your life. Especially ones that have played such a large role in determining who you are, as my mother did with me.

I've written before about how much alike we were -- in our temperament, our outlook on life and our sense of humor -- and I think that's why she still feels so close to me even after being gone for so long. I constantly see things that amuse me, and I know that they would have made her laugh too. I was sitting here trying to figure out what to write about that would give you a few minutes of entertainment and also let me reminisce about some of the fun we had when I was growing up.

Over there on the right, you may or may not have read the story about my first suit. In getting you up to "Mom Speed," that'll prime the pump. If you want more, check out Mr. Smooth, Part I and II.

Anyway, I decided I'm going to tell you about a couple of the times my mother felt the long arm of the law -- or by rights should have.

She was pretty spunky for being just over five feet tall, and would voice her opinion regardless of who it pissed off. That's one trait we don't really share, and I think that's because I'm only 5' 6" and I like my teeth right where they are.

My Mother, The Civil Engineer

I grew up in a residential neighborhood -- one of those developments built back in the 70's where all the houses looked the same except for the color of the siding and shutters. Our house was about half-way down a fairly straight street, and as a result people tended to drive a little faster than they probably should have. There wasn't exactly a lot of traffic, but going on toward four or five o'clock, there were enough cars going by to make a game of kickball problematic, since yelling "CAR!" every five minutes and standing on the side of the street didn't really lend itself to riveting game play. Although I have to admit, yelling "WHAT DO YOU THINK THIS IS, A ROAD?" at the passing cars was very clever comedy indeed to a bunch of 6 year-olds.

Even as we mouthed off to the passing motorists, it was still embarrassing to us when my mother would do the same thing. Sitting on the front steps with her coffee, or raking leaves or planting flowers, she would always pause in whatever she was doing and yell "SLOW DOWN!" at the top of her lungs whenever someone would invariably go tooling by at what she deemed to be excessive speed. I was never sure exactly how she judged these speeds, however. It may have been dependent upon the color of the car and/or her mood at the time -- I don't know. But regardless, it was embarrassing when you were with your friends.

Eventually, my mother tired of the passing cars ignoring her. I believe she took it as a personal affront that they did not immediately slow down upon hearing her bellowed commands. I think she expected them to back up and apologize to her for not driving 10 mph under the posted speed limit signs and then promise it would never happen again.

When that didn't happen, she complained to the cops. When the cops told her that the speed limit was 30 mph and that none of the cars they clocked had been over the limit, she decided that clearly the speed limit should be lowered to 20 mph and any motorists exceeding this limit should be arrested immediately and have their cars impounded, because BY GOD she wasn't going to see her children or her neighbors' children run down like dogs. Unfortunately, the police didn't see it the same way, and my mother and the local law enforcement officer reluctantly agreed to disagree on that matter.

She wasn't happy with that answer, however. So what did she do about it, you ask? Well, she did the normal and sane thing, obviously.

She collected signatures and got a spot on the agenda of the next town meeting and then proposed that the town petition the Dept. of Transportation on her behalf to consider lowering the speed limit on our street to 20mph, and then ---

No, I'm kidding of course. That is not the way my mother operated.

What she did instead was this: She drove to the local building supply store and bought about 6 bags of cold patch, waited until the middle of the night, and proceeded to make her own personal speed bump directly in front of our house.

I'm not kidding. Under cover of darkness, my mother actually dumped bags of asphalt onto a public street, formed it into a long mound and tamped it down with a shovel. (I don't think my father was in total agreement with her methods or if he was even aware of her plan, but in any case he was smart enough to know that if he tried to stand in her way he'd get steamrolled.)

Needless to say, this project turned out about as well as you would expect. Lacking any formal training in speed bump construction techniques, the result wasn't so much a speed bump as it was multiple six-inch-high axle-busting speed mounds.

Someone must have complained, because it didn't take long for the new addition to our street to be addressed. The local police weren't amused, and neither was the local highway crew that had to come out and scrape up the mess. Luckily, they had gotten on that before it had hardened completely, otherwise it wouldn't have been that easy. Looking back on it now, I can't really remember much more about it, although the speed limit may have gone down a notch or two shortly thereafter. I don't think she did any hard time for it. I don't remember missing any dinners, at any rate.

My Mother, The Cat Burglar

This story begins with my mother's hate-hate relationship with our childhood cat, the aptly and rather unimaginatively named "Kitty." Kitty was a male cat, and as a male cat, he liked to roam the neighborhood and get into trouble. And by trouble I mean killing things he shouldn't have been killing, pooping in places he shouldn't have been pooping, and impregnating things he shouldn't have been impregnating.

Sometimes, he would kill things around our house and leave just the heads and livers on the front sidewalk for my mother to clean up. She loved that. Even more, she loved the phone calls she would regularly receive from our irate neighbors.

They would call to complain about the habits and appetites of our far-ranging pet, and since my mother worked from home, it was generally up to her to respond to complaints. Eating birds off feeders, digging in flower gardens, pissing on their kid's Big Wheel, you name it. Most of the time, this meant driving to wherever our cat was -- sometimes surprisingly far away places -- and trying to catch it and bring it home. In some cases, the cat would be locked in the garage of the homeowner, waiting for pick up. Most of the time the cat was agreeable to this personalized taxi service, since ultimately it knew where the food bowl was, but sometimes he wanted to stay put, in direct opposition to his best interests. He also got smart after a while, and ran when caught in the act. I think she would have been better off just removing the tags from his collar so people wouldn't actually know who owned him, but she never did. She would always mutter something about "that damned cat" then jump in her car and begin the retrieval process.

One day, my mother was driving home from the store, and when she was still a few miles from our house, she spotted our cat. He was digging in the flowerbed in front of someone's house, obviously covering up a recent dump. She slammed on her brakes and jumped out of the car.

"Here, Kitty Kitty!" she yelled. "Here, Kitty! Come on!" When the cat ignored her, she offered up the ever-popular "God dammit, COME OVER HERE!"

Our cat just sat there and stared at her, obviously content to stay right where it was.

My mother was not playing, and she decided it was time our cat realized this. She strode up the front lawn and grabbed Kitty under her arm. At this point our cat began hissing and scratching and trying to get away, but my mother was having none of it. With a few choice words, she tossed the cat into the back seat of the car and drove home.

When she finally got home, she tossed the cat in the garage, opened a can of cat food, dropped it in the bowl, then closed the garage door and went inside -- only to see our cat lying in a sunbeam on the living room floor, sleeping peacefully, blissfully unaware of his recent capture.

She didn't do any hard time for that escapade either, although it's probably a good thing the actual owners never found out who kidnapped their family pet. I'm sure they still talk about the time an unknown woman in a Chevy Chevette stopped briefly in their driveway, got out of her car, ran around to the passenger side and opened the door for their cat like she was Eartha Kitt's Chauffeur.

So there's two more stories for you. There are many more where those came from, but you'll have to stick around until next Mother's day to hear about the Lupines and the blowfish.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom. It's always fun to hang out for a bit.

Thanks for everything.

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Also, you guys can do me an oft-requested favor and click here. That will keep me in good standing with all those mommy bloggers and cat kidnappers over at humor-blogs.com.

PS - I forgot to mention that comment moderation is turned on for a bit -- I was getting spammed on a lot of old posts lately and am waiting for it to die down. I turned anonymous back on, however.

PPS - comment moderation sucks, so I turned it back off. Spammers, have at me.