May 21st, 2010 by Kateastrophe

My mother is amazing.  Maybe the most amazing human being that ever existed EVER.  OK maybe I went too far there but I’m just putting it out there that she’s awesome and everyone says so.

Now that I’ve gotten that part out of the way I will share with you the story of that one time, last week, when my mother drove almost me to insanity via a paper doll.  A paper doll named Flat Stanley.

My amazing baby sister and her husband both graduated from the LSU Nursing School last week.  For the momentous occasion, as much of the family as could manage made the trek to New Orleans to celebrate Southern style.  This posse of awesomeness included my (amazing) Mother, my Dad (who flew in from China) my Grandmother, myself and my sister’s best friend and spouse.  The logistics of the trip were a bit tricky.  Dad had rented a car, Mom and Grams had not.  Meagan and Lukey (aka Sister and Husband) had their tiny little Nissan.  Some of us were staying in the French Quarter and some of us were staying in student housing apartment occupied by Sister and Husband about twenty minutes away.  If we all tried to fit in one car it was no bueno.  So Dad and Mom ended up in the same car a lot.

In case you didn’t know this already, Mom and Dad are divorced and have been for almost 24 years.  They are polar opposite human beings and I still to this day am unsure of how they EVER got along long enough to have four kids.  Love them both, but seriously, it’s that bad.  They do a good job of getting along at kid centric occasions such as weddings and graduations but it’s still a wee bit stressful on us kids because we try to keep them separate but equal if you know what I mean.

Dad and I are a lot alike in our travel styles.  We’re very organized and we’ve always got a plan (usually three plans, just in case).  You take away our plan and our heads explode.  You make us late for the plan, and our heads explode.   No Plan = Big Mess to Clean Up.

Mom is what we like to call a “Free Spirit.”  I doubt she’s ever been on time to anything in her life.  She TRIES to plan, but when she does it sort of explodes into craziness.  She likes to live in the moment.  It’s great, but it’s a bit hard on The Plan.

{Example?  We were all trying to stay in the same hotel but we weren’t sure if we could pull it off.  Mom found a hotel she OHMAGOSHHADTOSTAYIN and booked not one, not two but THREE rooms “just in case.”  This would have been fine but I think she thought the hotel was going to catch her or something because she booked them all under a different last name.  She then asked me to finalize everything, since I’m the travel planner extraordinaire and when I called the hotel to confirm ONE room and cancel the others, they couldn’t find jack.  It took me an hour to unravel the mess.  SEE?  Explosion of craziness.}

So, as you can probably tell, Mom relying on Dad to get us places wasn’t such a great idea.  Kate coming along for the ride made it a worse idea.  Dad + Kate=Mega Plan.  Dad+Kate/Mom= WTH JUST HAPPENED?

The morning of the commencement ceremony, The Planners wanted to be early to get good seats.  Mom went for an eight mile run and got back exactly 30 minutes before the plan was to be set in motion.  Mom then jumped in the pool to cool down.  Then she carefully rung(rang?) out her bathing suit, then she showered and started to get ready.  45 minutes later (as the plan is slowly dying a painful death) she think she’s ready to go and we’re on our way out to the car, I hear “Oh no!  Flat Stanley!”

Some more background on Flat Stanley for you.  Mom’s husband’s granddaughter (got that?) gave Flat Stanley to my Mom MONTHS ago.  Mom forgot about Flat Stanley.  Mom lost Flat Stanley.  Mom found Flat Stanley and then Mom brought Flat Stanley to New Orleans to complete her task, which I believe is technically taking one or two pictures in New Orleans.  Weeeeel, Jan turned that one into a documentary of Flat Stanley’s life as a Southern boy and decided to bring him everywhere.  But see, there’s this whole problem of slight disorganization and MOM KEPT LOSING FLAT STANLEY.  And she’d freak out and go looking for him and guess what that does to The Plan?  If you guessed “shot it in the head” you would be correct.

She proceeds to rip all her clothes out of her suitcase, all the papers our of her briefcase and all the stuff out of her purse madly looking for a PAPER DOLL.  Of course by now The dying Plan has become The “shot in the head execution style” Plan.  Dad and I are having internal panic attacks and trying to smile through the pain.  Mom is still looking for Flat Stanley and Grandma is . . . well being my awesome Grandma.

It takes a few minutes to locate him and no less than 25 minutes late we are out the door.  My Dad, who in a previous life would have been shouting expletives involving a word beginning with “F” at everyone by this time, is driving down the road and smiles at my Mom and says “You know, if we went and made color copies of Flat Stanley you’d never have to worry about losing him again because you’d have MANY of him.”  Mom agrees it’s a good idea but NEVER DOES IT.  We proceed to rinse and repeat the above story in slightly different situations for the rest of the trip.

As I’m sure you can imagine, over the course of the next four days the list of people who hated Flat Stanley had increased from 2 to about 745,000.  I guess it’s a good thing Mom was protective of him because when we went on our swamp tour, I almost introduced Flat Stanley to Joe the 15 ft. Alligator.  As “luck” would have it, Flat Stanley made it back home with Mom safe but I think the rest of us are scarred for life.  If my future children ever bring home a Flat Stanley they’re going to be very confused when Mommy grabs it out of their hands and runs away screaming at the top of her lungs, never to be found again.

Thanks a lot, (truly awesome oh how I love you)Mom.