Could it be my mother really isn’t faking? That she’s not crazy, but just afflicted with the serious disease known as eccentricity-itis?
You’ve seen it on Oprah: That’s when you can’t stop yourself from being strange, unusual and unique, despite the horrible embarrassment it causes family, or the head-scratching it induces in perfect strangers. People with such an affliction have the knack for walking up to anyone on the street and saying things like, “Did you know one of your knee caps is larger than the other?” or “I knew we were going to have a bad hurricane season because the tangerine tree got a fungus.”
People can’t believe anyone would say things like this and instead think they’re on “Candid Camera.”
Could it be eccentricity-itis? It would explain so much, like why, when she came to visit last weekend, the first words out of her mouth were, “Brian, you’re getting a big belly, just like your brother!”
It’s a plague of saying anything, and I mean ANYTHING, that wanders into your head, demanding to be free.
It set a bad tone for the weekend, but I trudged on, sucking in my stomach the whole time. Thanks, mom.
We went to lunch at Athena, the Greek restaurant. Want to have fun with a woman who doesn’t understand simple things like, say, how to pronounce “CD,” then take her to a Greek restaurant. Someone orders a lamb souvlaki and it has her all confused: “Did you just order a Governor Pataki?” she says. The rest of lunch is spent explaining how, from history to contents, souvlaki differs from a gyro.
And on like this it goes.
People with eccentricity-itis make seemingly contradictory statements to their children … in the same breath. “Brian, you better stop running or it’s going to ruin your knees,” she said to me before turning to my brother to tell him, “Scott, why don’t you get back into running?”
These poor souls are also notoriously bad drivers.
After one ride, my wife refused to be a passenger in her car anymore.
“Why?” my mother asked. “I’ve never directly caused a car accident, and on those two speeding tickets, I was either framed or entrapped by the police. I’m really a very safe driver.”
Nancy snickered.
“ I get car sick when I ride with you,” she told her. “You drive 100 mph down the street, and then you just stop. For no reason! And then you take off again. One time it was so bad, I thought I was having a seizure!”
Eccentricity-itis sufferers love to make someone’s point for them.
“I am not a bad driver,” my mother proclaimed. A moment later she was streaking by our house, totally oblivious about where she was. This pointed out, she screeched to a halt, threw it into reverse and nearly took out a light pole.
Eccentricity-itis sufferers are totally afraid of bridges, too. Driving to Jacksonville to look at cribs and baby furniture, we got lost on the Arlington Expressway. A bridge the size of Mt. Killimanjaro loomed ahead.
“Brian, you better turn off before we get there,” she shouted, just to add her two cents to the confusion of the situation.
Hard as I tried — and I did try — I didn’t make it.
Her fate sealed, and the bridge approaching, her face turned the color of plaster.
“Then you better crash this car because I am not going over that thing.”
But yes she was. She gripped the car, her claws sinking deep into the upholstery like a cat on the way to the vet. Just barely we made it over, and I mean just barely.
This is the way she is — who she is. I’ll accept that. One day there might be a cure, but for now, she’s my mom, and I’m coming to terms with the fact that I will have to deal with her eccentricities and all. So be it. But I just wish she could once in a while hold back a few of those things that pop into her head and scream to be free.