Monday, May 24, 2010

Please Sir... Donate to a Good Cause


Although it could never compete with singing, arts and crafts definitely ranks as one of the all time highlights of attending daycare for My Mom. I keep saying my condo would now be an art gallery for her creations if she had her way. Her group pretty much makes the same types of things you'd see at a kindergarten classroom: traditional pictures, snowflake cutouts, tissue paper hanging mobiles, story books and even objects made out of brown paper bags. Almost every creation involves gluing on glitter or little heart shaped or star type cutouts.

Most of the artwork would be the type of thing you'd hang somewhere in the home either with a little scotch tape or sometimes a convenient little string incorporated into the design. And most of the time, a day or two counts as a full showing before My Mom forgets about it and the piece can be retired out of sight.
Neither proved the case for this Coolwhip container. She's had the thing a full year and refuses to part with it. The worst thing is, I can't seem to find a purpose for it -- and believe me, I've tried!
It's not deep enough to create a center piece of some type. It doesn't drain, so it can't hold a plant and sadly, it's just too unattractive to fit in with any decor.
I tried using it to hold her pens and pencils, but the opening was too wide. On a great brainstorm, I bought ping pong balls and created a game where she had to toss the plastic balls into the little bucket. It sat on her lap, and she'd flip the balls into the opening. A great exercise for dexterity -- until the dog and cat decided to play and rebound her misses. We now have two sets of mangled ping pong balls, pierced with teeth marks. And the little bucket, as of last week, was back to serving no purpose except collecting dust.

I let it sit around. I thought maybe, if it sat on display long enough, she'd grow tired of it, just as she does with all her other creations and we could finally put it away.
Instead, daily she'd pick it up, inspect it, comment on its beauty and one afternoon, to my utter surprise -- she found it's purpose!

I had walked out of the room for who knows what, and walked back in to find her with a pathetic little look on her face. She held the bucket in both hands, stretching it gingerly toward me.
"Please sir... could you help me out?"
A beggar's bucket?!
"Could you make just a small donation? I'd be so appreciative."
My Mom relished the part and played it so well, I had to go get a dollar and drop it in the bucket. Her face changed instantaneously from starved peasant to elated lottery winner. She would have kicked her heels if she could.
"Wow! I'm outta here!" she exclaimed, pretending to bolt from her chair.
This is why I have My Mom. She makes me laugh til I cry at least once a day. Surely that's complete payment for taking care of her -- although come to think of it, she's now the one hustling for money.

Just like everything else, I thought she'd quickly forget about her latest antic, but the next day when the caregiver arrived she was at it again. This time with a bigger story.
"My family has no food. Please, could you please help put food on the table?" she uttered in a weak voice followed with a feeble grin. (We're still awaiting the dentures, so the missing teeth truly help her cause.)
I went and grabbed a couple pennies to drop in the bucket to appease her.
"Cheapskate!" she called out. We were howling. Trying to set the caregiver up for a good evening while I went out to dinner, I gave her a five dollar bill to toss in. The move catapulted her to instant hero status.

Interestingly enough, this is not My Mom's first foray into begging. She and her sister Sarah actually got in trouble for singing and dancing on the boat to America when they traveled to this country with my Grandma from Scotland. People evidently threw money at their feet while they performed. The oldest sister tattled and my Grandma made them return the money.
I asked My Mom if she remembered that story. She was only six or seven at the time. She said she did, but she made no correlation to the current begging gig. Evidently receiving payment for showmanship falls into a different category than straight up panhandling. Or keeping in mind this whole begging thing is an act as well, maybe she just doesn't want to break character long enough to talk about it, after all she's netting quite a haul.

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