 My mom plays rummy like an accountant. It takes an act of God to pry a card from a pair or a potential run out of her hand. It's a slow, steady game that usually gets her beat by more than a hundred points, but there are times that she emerges on the other side of the five hundred point bar and flips my brother and I off with two extended middle fingers.
Well, to tell the truth, she would never be so crass as to flip anybody off. (I'm still working on it, and when it does happen, I'll post the picture.) Instead, it's the Baptist Mama bible version of a two-fisted middle finger, one that must be decoded by sons who have studied the archaic language for over six decades. Her weakness is in how she uses the discard pile, often handing my brothers cheap points like a drunken politician on shore leave. When I tell her to tighten that shit up, she looks at me with one cocked eye and hieroglyphically lets me know that if I want to remain in the will, I had better shut the F**k up and concentrate on my own game and leave hers alone. "How the heck am I supposed to know what he has?" "Well, it could he he still has the king you discarded right before you discarded that one." I which point she resorts to the time worn trick of back handing me with the hand she wears her ring on. "Mom, you better watch out. They got laws about child abuse that they didn't back when we were growing up." "Child Abuse? Well, they would just look at you and laugh. "Ha! Ha! They got new laws against elder abuse too." "I'd just act like I was crazy." "That's not acting; that's like being the collapsible hose on the infomercial." "You saying I can't act." "No, I'm saying you are crazy." "I'm still your Mother! And I brought you into the world, and I can take you out." I got nothing to say to that, so I just let it go and took it, but mumbled stuff under my breath. "What are you mumbling about?" "I didn't say nothing....but, Steve looked at your cards when you went to the bathroom." Steve didn't even respond, just his raised his chin and gave me a disgusted look that said., "Don't even try to put me in the middle of this." I picked up a three of clubs from off the deck, one of the most pathetic cards in the deck. I tossed it immediately. Ma Barker picked it up, laid down four threes, and slammed down the Jack of hearts I had needed for the last twenty minutes right in front of my nose. "Rummy!.....Dummy!" First, the Virus, then Shelter in Place, now this. Life ain't the least bit fucking fair. |
Categories
All
|
RSS Feed