A Bet With Your Mother Is a Losing Proposition
Readers of this column know that I would never use it to extract money from an 83-year-old widow living on a fixed income--unless I had a darned good reason for doing so.
Here it is.
Months ago, my mother and I made a friendly $10 bet.
I said that Y2K would amount to a great big zero.
My mother took the opposite position. Like many other New Yorkers, she has a great fondness for the opposite position, regardless of the subject at hand.
If we had been discussing the Earth revolving around the sun, she would have bet that the sun revolves around the Earth. If the subject had been “God Bless America,” she would have insisted there was no way it had been written by Irving Berlin.
And if I had dug up a biography of Irving Berlin and read over the phone a chapter about how he had gotten the idea for “God Bless America” and what that stirring song meant to him and what it meant to the entire country, she would have retorted: “So, you’re in Ventura County--what do you know, anyway?”
In any event, my mother predicted that Y2K would trigger a catastrophe--a huge catastrophe, as I recall--somewhere in the U.S. in the first 10 days of January.
Nonevents proved me right. Y2K was, of course, a bust, a dud, a fizzle, the Edsel of all cataclysms. I won.
At least, I thought I did.
Last week, I received the following note from Mom:
Dear Steve,
After reflection, it’s clear to me that my Y2K defeat is worth about $7, which amount is enclosed. Ten dollars is hardly justified for the bet you persuaded me to make.
There were many “glitches” in the millennium frenzy:
1. The machine in the laundry room that spews out quarters--OUT.
2. The light in my refrigerator--OUT.
3. The espresso machine in my favorite coffee place--OUT.
In fact I’m seriously thinking that $5 would be fair.
The problem I have is that my obituary might read, “She was a good mother--but cheap.”
Love,
Mom
Can you imagine? Since when does anyone lose a bet--even one she was allegedly “persuaded” to make--and unilaterally decide how much to pay on it? Feel with me, if you can, the sting of maternal betrayal: Since when does a mother withhold the $3 rightfully due one of her only sons?
Arguing with her did me no good. Incredibly, my demand for the $3 was met only with prolonged laughter!
I felt so violated.
If I had given myself time to calm down, I might not have made my next move.
When my mother and I chat these days, she often brings up Hillary “she’s-from-Arkansas-what-does-she-know” Clinton. She doesn’t have much sympathy for Hillary. In fact, she equates Hillary with such notorious out-of-towners as Attila the Hun.
That’s why I took the liberty of contacting the campaign, on my mother’s behalf. On Hillary’s Web site, an urgent plea had gone out for volunteers eager to host a “house party for Hillary.”
After I signed her up, Mom sent me the following note:
Dear Steve,
Someone from the Hillary Clinton campaign called and asked me when I would like to host a ‘house-party for Hillary.’ I asked where she got my name and she said from Steve Chawkins. I told her he should mind his own business. I said that if Hillary Clinton wins, I’m seriously thinking of moving to New Jersey.
Love,
Mom
I’ve been thinking about asking New Jersey to send my mother a Garden State welcome kit, but I don’t know if I have the energy to deal with the aftermath.
The point is: A family feud is blazing, a once-chirpy volunteer for Hillary is now permanently in tears, my mother is contemplating a move to New Jersey, and I’m still down $3. And you thought Y2K was a great big zero!
Steve Chawkins can be reached at 653-7561 or by e-mail at steve.chawkins@latimes.com.
