Soren Overboard

Soren Overboard

I don’t think it was possible for mom to be any more excited than when I arrived at her house dragging her two new skeletons behind me.

Mom: They could not be more perfect. Let’s name them. They both look Danish to me.

Me: How about Carl-Erik after dad’s cousin? (My dad cashed in his chips 22 years ago so he was not available to stop the madness).

Mom’s nose crunches up like she got a whiff of cheap perfume.

Me: Or Soren? After my great grandfather? Soren Sorensen.

Mom: Ha! Excellent! What about the girl?

Me: Oh we have another female in the mix?

Mom: Well of course we do. It’s not going to be two men against Marta.

Marta is the quite small glow in the dark skeleton hanging from mom’s lampost next to an oversized spider and web. Last year Marta was a he. I asked for an explanation. Crickets.

Me: If we are staying with the Danish relative theme how about Agnes, after my grandfather’s sister?

Agnes in the window of the groovy gift shop The Silk Road. She must be beside herself. One minute she’s hanging from a hook in Party City, the next minute she’s a model.

Mom: Brillante! Now your next mission is to put Agnes in the window of The Silk Road. She will need a hat, scarf, and surgical mask. Why should she be exempt from wearing one in public?

Me: Mom I am happy to put her in the store window but the mask isn’t going to work. She doesn’t have ears.

Mom: Oh for the love. Ok, but the hat has to be purple.

Once mom gets her teeth into an idea, she is growing it.  Welcome to my life.

Mom: Let’s put Soren in the pool!

I throw him in. I am very surprised by how well he floats.

Mom: Oh, this is wonderful. Do you think he has been in the water before? Do you think any skeleton has been in a pool like ours?

Me: I am pretty confident neither of those things has occurred.

While taking these photos of Soren I heard laughter coming from behind some trees belonging to mom’s next-door neighbors.  It was their gardener. The property is about five feet higher than mom’s, so the gardener had a great view of me adjusting Soren on the raft. Mom thought of course it was fantastic we had an audience.

What I would have given to be a fly on the wall later that night when the gardener tells the story of some middle-aged bag posing a skeleton in a children’s swimming pool in the middle of fall while her elderly mother sits above on the terrace cackling. I didn’t even try to explain to him why I was doing what I was doing. I just gave him a wave. I hope he knew Soren is fake.

Mom: Ok, it’s time for Soren to get out of the pool.

Me: Aye aye captain.

I am wondering if some of you who have never actually met my mom are concerned she is slipping into some form of dementia. Or if you think both of us are.  I can assure you, we are just freakazoids experiencing childhood again. That’s what I tell myself anyway.

Soren out of the pool, dry, and ready for his front porch duty. Oh the tales he could tell his chums at Party City.

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