It's the most wonderful time of the year, and not just because I'm hitting Advanced Maternal Age today. No, it's the ninth annual festival of lying liars: I Remember MrsDarwin!
If you read this, if your eyes are passing over this right now, even if we don't speak often, please post a comment with a COMPLETELY MADE UP AND FICTIONAL MEMORY OF YOU AND ME.
It can be anything you want--good or bad--BUT IT HAS TO BE FAKE.
When you're finished, post this paragraph on your blog and be surprised (or mortified) about what people DON'T ACTUALLY remember about you.This year, in honor of my being laid up for so long, let's contemplate mortality:
What did I confess to you on my deathbed?
or
What gift did you give me at my christening?
Bonus points for those who "remember" both, because I'm stuck here in bed with nothing to do but refresh the comments every three minutes.
Brush up on egregious falsehoods from the past eight years.
7 comments:
Death bed confession:
You reached out your thin wrinkled and freckled hand and said, "Sometimes I wish I'd spent less time with my kids and more time building my personal brand. The kids are a thankless bunch, but the internet was always appreciative."
Hehehe!
Also:
"I never did tire of raising awareness for the health benefits of kale."
Happy Birthday Mrs. D!
Few, of course, can forget the gift I gave you at your christening. In one of my frequent fits of capricious rage, inspired by the fact your father had failed to invite me because he had only ten paper plates left in the package and eleven local fairies, I laid a curse upon you that you would have six children, and that the sixth would prevent you from moving while he was in the womb, and from ever sitting still once he was out. Many present considered this one of my lesser curses. It didn't measure up to the old spinning wheel gag, but then, in these technological days, who has the time. (I did think of something rather clever a while back and cursed a girl that when she used an iPhone for the first time, she would fall into a a hundred years sleep, and she didn't even make it till age five.)
But really, I couldn't muster so very much indignation since I'd just hit it off so well with your uncle Sven. What did you all think when we ran off together the next year.
Of course, it wasn't till you were on your death bed that I confessed the truth to you: There really had been a paper plate for me, but the blue fairy, who always was a bit clumsy, had picked up two plates that stuck together. Perhaps if she had been more dexterous and I had been able to get my fortifying serving of Pink Stuff, I would have been in a better mood and not cursed you. But then, what would you do if you hadn't given birth to the inventor of simultaneous chess match-triathlon competition which has become so popular in these late, frenetic times of ours that it has replaced world commerce, war and government in one constant stream of intellectual and physical effort?
Betty, you're outing me! Of course, few know that I'm also the mother of the internet.
Evil Faery, you are good, and you know just a bit too much about my family celebrations. Who revealed to you the secret of the Pink Stuff?
Mrs. Darwin, you probably don't remember that your parents made me your godmother, thinking that I would surely give you a good present. However, all that I gave you was a twenty-shilling book token, provoking a long estrangement that was broken only when, on your deathbed, I gave you the complete works of Evelyn Waugh.
I remember your christening. A sad affair, rather substandard cake (not nearly enough icing roses), and everyone paying attention to some squalling thing in the corner instead of me, the only natural center of all attention, the rightful receiver of all adulation. Of course this situation could not be allowed to continue.
I inserted myself into the center of the throng surrounding the blanket wrapped usurper, made a big show of tossing my naturally curly ringlets, and being adorable as I cooed over the other child. "She will have curly hair, just like me!" I said winsomely, the very picture of childish innocence and goodness.
The adults around were utterly overcome by my sweetness and generosity, and I was carried victoriously away to be rewarded with *two* frosting roses (the exact ones my two older sisters had been eyeing), and a whole afternoon of showing off shamelessly while the my siblings looked on with jealous disgust, and the new baby (you, I suppose) fussed alone in the corner. Oh, the first of many triumphs!
Incidentally, it turns out that my statement was true. Instantly your previously stick straight hair began to curl, and now you do indeed have curly hair, just like me.
It was on your death bed you motioned to me. You had one last thing to say.
I drew near. "Closer." You said.
I drew nearer. "Closer." You insisted.
I put my ear close. You grasped my shirt like a beaver trap snares a wildcat. Your breath smelled like pea soup. You spoke the final, grave words of your life:
"Mercy is falling, is falling, is falling. Mercy it falls like the sweet spring rain."
You laid your head back. Your grip weakened.
"Mercy is falling, is falling all over me."
I sat back, stunned, as you breathed your last.
"Hey, oh...."
We thought you were failing of course. You were pale and lifeless on the brocade couch, sipping Ol' Pappy (for medicinal purposes only). You half-whispered that you had a secret fetish for calipers. "Caliphates?" I said. "No, calipers!," you said with surprising vigor (must've been the 'skey). "The kind you measure fat with, or in my case my tumescent tummy!"
I was dumfounded and upset though appreciative of the alliteration. I told you how I'd wished I'd given you calipers instead of a hardcopy of my last seven years' of blog posts as a christening present the week before, and you gently reminded me that Christmas was coming.
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