BEAUTY SHOP TALK

by

Vicki Charmaine Bunch

Sunday is Mother's Day--as if you cared. If your mother's like me, she doesn't expect a thing. It's enough to know the child she sacrificed her life for is probably in a bar somewhere smoking a $49 cigar. Far be it from me to remind you she might not survive the Y2K disaster.

Why does everybody always talk about June Cleaver? Like she's the only mother. I was Wilma Flintstone, doing everything with the most primitive appliances. We didn't even have a trash compactor.

Some guy in L.A. is divorcing his mother because she burnt a cigarette hole in the leather interior of his BMW. Maybe she should have divorced him when he bit a hole in her house shoe. Or when he went to the bathroom in the pool at the country club. But no--a mother would never do such as thing. A mother gives and gives until there's nothing left.

The word "mother" comes from the Latin martyr: to kill yourself for others. It starts when a mother has to give up wearing a bikini in the ninth month of pregnancy and continues through breast-feeding when she lets you suck the very life out of her. No wonder she's just a shell.

Don't trouble yourself inviting her to lunch or anything for Mother's Day. She wouldn't want you to be alarmed by her bloody knees, the knees she crawled across broken glass on to bring your lunch to school when you were hung over from partying all night while she did your chemistry homework by the dim glow of a 5 watt flashlight because the electricity got turned off when she used all the money to bail you out of jail.

She would be content to sit at your table and drink a glass of water. She has always been content with crumbs. The old robe you must have bought at the rummage sale. That cheap bottle of whiskey. The toothbrush.

Mrs. Krucek's's children treat her like a queen. Thomas bought her an adjustable bed. April and Amber went in on the Rascal, which you would know is an electric cart, if all you had to do is watch re-runs of Quincy day in and day out because no one ever calls. Did

Mrs. Krusek iron her children's underwear? No--and her mashed potatoes are from a box.

Don't worry. It's enough to know you're having martinis with the high society friends you care more about than your own flesh and blood. Maybe you could just think of your mother while you chit chat with some movie star. Think how giving birth to you ruined her figure and blew her chances of being a movie star. Did you remember to say thanks?

One lousy phone call. She would cherish the memory until the day she died, which could be any minute. You never can tell about these things. One day somebody's the picture of health. The next day they're dead. You should call.