My Mother, The Thief, Part II

Friday night I had some car trouble. It always sucks having car trouble, but my mom lived only 20 minutes away, so I called her to see if she could help me with her jumper cables.

We could not jump the battery successfully, so while waiting for a tow, we went inside to eat at a local restaurant that I often go to.

She got an individual pizza and I had a sandwich.

Soon thereafter, we got the call the tow truck was 30 minutes out, so we got "To Go" boxes.

"What a shame. You don't have any dipping sauces, so you can't steal the dishes." This is just a couple weeks after the night at the Okolona restaurant when I learned she has a history of taking these particular dishes home.

"I don't know," she says as she picks up the empty plate and puts it on the to go pizza box. "I think this one will fit perfectly in my 'To Go' box."

"That's not funny. Don't you dare!"

Thankfully, she was joking. Her sense of humor is funny.

I wonder if stealing the little dipping dishes is a gateway crime. In a year, will the police will be tasering a 66 year old woman with $100,000 of stolen weapons in the trunk of her Honda Civic?

My Mother, The Thief

Last Friday night, I arranged for a ride from my mom to the airport to get a rental car. I was heading out of town for two Springsteen shows in Philly and I did not want to put the 1600+ miles on my car. So after I get the car, I thought I would take her out to dinner.

We went to a local establishment in Okolona and they were crowded as heck. We ended up right next to the server's station, where the soda machine and the register were. Mom ordered a sampler appetizer for her dinner. It had potato skins, fried cheese wedges and chicken fingers on it. She had also requested BBQ sauce and sour cream. I got the chicken fingers and it tasted great.

We were both unable to finish the meal, so mom asked for a "To Go" box. I let her have my chicken fingers that were left since I was going to leave town for five days.

It was a small box barely able to hold the leftover food. It was made smaller when mom went to put in the actual dishes that had the extra BBQ sauce and sour cream in them.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"I am out of sour cream at home and I don't have any BBQ sauce either."

"Mom, you can't take their dishes!"

"Oh they won't miss them. Where do you think I got the ones for the kids to use for their ketchup?"

Suddenly I realized how mom accumulated the 7 or 8 dishes in her cabinet! I would later learn they were quite useful for them to dip their veggies into their ranch dressing.

"MOM!" I could not believe this.

The box would not close, so she asked for a second box.

I could NOT believe this, but she's 65 now and has ceased caring anymore about societal constraints.

The second box arrived.

"Put those in the box," she said.

"They're right behind me. They'll see."

"They're not paying attention," she assured me.

They were literally two feet behind me. I carefully, and as quickly as I could, picked them both up and went to put them in the second box with my left hand, leaving my right hand to close the box quickly.

It was at that moment, she let out a loud squeal that sounded like "WHEEEEEEE!" that resulted in my nearly having a heart attack and throwing the two small condiment dishes to the ceiling.

She started laughing having totally flustered me. She did the squeal simply to #$%^ with me.

I shut the lid and it was almost over.

She told me to throw the napkins on top of the plates so the servers would not notice them missing and we walked out casually, well, she did. I was fast paced, thinking the condiment dish police might get me for aiding and abetting a senior citizen.

I can't believe I helped her take those two dishes.

She still had the BBQ sauce when I was back on Tuesday. And then I saw her entire collection. I wonder if this stack of little dishes is a hint that she is wanting more grandkids dipping carrots into ranch dressing now that the others are getting older?