My Mom and Her Self Defense Class, Part 2, Plus Other Happenings in the Last 24 Hours

So imagine to my surprise when I get this email on my Blackberry yesterday:

"Jim,

I broke my wrist Saturday during the practical excerise [sic] :( I'm home from work for a few days. Call me.

Love,
Mom"

So, the partially chewed cracker spills from my mouth-ajar and I call her instantly. I put her on speaker phone because I'm a massively lazy dick.

"What the hell happened!" I say into the phone. There's a pause on the other end.

"Hello?" Jesus.

"Mom? What happened!"

"Don't yell at me!" She says.

"I'm not yelling, you're just on speaker, mum"

"Why am I on speaker?"

"Because I'm lazy, now tell me what happened to you on Saturday..." There's another long pause followed by a slow drawn out sigh.

"Well we were doing the practical and... you know they're really good, right? Well, they were putting us through all these scenarios... whether we were being cornered at a bar or at an ATM or whatever. And I was so nervous James. On the video, I'm standing there in line, waiting for my turn, swinging my arms and...

...so anyway, I get up and we're dressed in all this stuff, like hockey gloves and catcher's masks and so on, and well, I hit this guy in the face. And when I hit him he went down and was like 'whoooaaa' but at the same time I felt my wrist kinda ... pop. It didn't start bothering me until I got back from the ice capades and my wrist was all swollen."

Leave it to my mother, to go from whooping some dude's ass to the ice capades. Awesome.

In other news the roommate and I went to go see "Street Kings" last night. We sat in a virtually empty theatre rows and seats apart. We decided that we really didn't need to sit right next to each other because well... that'd be kinda gay, even though everyone at the station, including The Lady, thinks we're gay for each other.

What else, what else. I can't really concentrate right now because The Lady is over here, on my bed wearing an ironic Transformer's t shirt and yoga pants. Upon her entry into my apt I commented:

"Cool shirt, but I was more of a Megatron fan growing up. Actually cancel that - I was a Sound Wave fan, because I liked how we talked... all synthesizer-y." She comments back that she actually hates the Transformers. I don't hold it against her, considering she's a chick and... probably played with Barbies while I was playing with a tractor trailer truck that would morph into a red and blue robot with a few quick snaps of plastic.

At the mall today, again the roommate mentioned he was still in some sort of limited contact with his whale of a lay from a week or so ago. He's been ignoring everyone's advice to sever ties, and though he claims he directly called her "fat" via a text message, she still talks to him.

"Dude, she's a stalker with dependency issues, you need to full-out stop talking to her, she's dangerous," I say as I'm browsing for a plain brown belt at Pacific Sunwear (they only make belts for skinny hipster kids, apparently, size 34? c'mon...)

"I can't... what if I stop talking to her and like a month from now she comes back at me with 'oh hey, I'm pregnant...'" He says with a hint of anxiety. I roll my eyes. He's been playing out this scenario of the last two weeks it would seem.

"That's beyond likely, because you wore a condom, right?"

"Yeah."

"So why are you stressing out over stupid shit like that?"

"Dude, I dunno, it's just like, I don't want it to happen..."

"Then why do you still talk to her. If that's what you're worried about, getting the hell away from her would seem the likely thing to do. If a little while goes by and she's like 'oh I'm pregnant' and you've still been in touch with her, she's going to stick you with a baby that may or may not be yours, oppose to if you cut ties with her, and a year from now she comes back at you with some screaming hellspawn, you can be like 'bitch I don't even know who you are, we've never met.'" It doesn't exactly sink in.

"But, what if she IS pregnant!"

"What makes you think she is? And a bitch saying she's pregnant is likely trying to get you to stick around, when she's not even knocked up! It's the same thing with the hundred dollar Lacoste cologne she bought you. She's setting a trap. You don't owe that bitch anything, so why are you acting like you do? You know what," and this is where I start to get angry. "I'm actually going to order you to stop talking to her. That's a serious order."

He looks at me blankly.

"You can't do that," he says.

"The fuck I can! I out rank you by one grade. You take orders from me. And you're now ordered not to speak to that fat bitch." He looks at me for a long time and says nothing. "This mall needs an Orange Julius," I say after a prolonged silence.

We're on our way out the door to the truck when I spot this hot little number walking into the Marshal's.

"Go talk to her, go get her, catch up to her," I nudge my roommate. He half steps.

"You go get her," he comes back with.

"I can't. I'm kinda... you know, caught up in something. Just go up to her, say 'hey, I saw you from back there, I don't know who you are, and you don't know who I am, but I want to change that. Give me your number and let me take you out to dinner this weekend'. Just be fucking direct. Girls love a guy with balls who'll just ask them out. If she says she has a boyfriend, tell her you don't care, it's just dinner. If she says 'no thank you' tell you won't take no for an answer. Don't come across aggressive or... fucking... crazy, just be your sweet self, be assertive, take control. Who's in control here?"

"...I dunno, bro..." His posture starts to melt.

"WHO'S IN CONTROL HERE!" I yell. People are now staring at us. I look around and make direct eye contact with a few of the weird goths out in the midday sun at the mall. "Fuck it, you lost her, massive fail." She's no longer in eye sight and I start for the door.

"I'm sorry, bro" he says from behind me.

Yeah, me too.

My Mom and Her Self-Defense Class

I got an email from my mom a few days ago letting me know she enrolled in a Women's Self-Defense Course being offered through Portland PD. She gets to take it for free since her ... blah blah blah... insurance or work-related-thing... covers it.

I find this very interesting because my mother is probably the least confrontational person I've ever met in my life, aside from Hokie. For years (and personal reasons) I've been pushing her to get a pistol permit so she can carry a firearm in her bag or in her car or something, and she's deflected that whole idea. So I went and got her a can of pepper spray after she was acosted by some random dickhole in the Hannafords in Biddeford a while back, but when I showed her how to use it, she seemed hardly interested.

So I give her a call at the house tonight just to touch base (because, according to the email, we hadn't "spoken in days!!!!!" ...for the record, it was like, four days...) and see what this whole class is about. Here's a fairly accurate paraphrasing of the conversation.

Me: So tell me about this ... uh, self defense class you're taking...
Mom: Oh! Oh Jim, it's such a work out, me and a few girls from the office, we get out of work and head over, you know, as a little group, and the class is about 15 women, and I think I'm the oldest. And it's taught by this female policewoman (she seriously said that) who's a very good instructor and she's very cute and very single. I told her all about you and what you do and what you went through with the whole "police-thing" and she said she totally understands what you've been going through and how it's all screwed up that Portland PD has to get rid of 15 officers for budget cuts and-
Me: Mom, get back to the class...
Mom: Oh, well, anyway, I told her you were single and that if she was interested I'd give her your number.
Me: Mom! Don't.... fucking pimp me out to ... lady cops, Jesus...
Mom:...Anyway, so they teach us all these moves and the reasons behind them: Like how to get out of when someone grabs your wrists or tries to choke you from behind or grabs your bag, or something like that. We're all so.... scared, you know? But the instructors are really great and take their time teaching and critiqing our techniques. They even video tape us and we get to watch it afterwards to see how we look.
Me: So I mean, mom, would you have a problem, and I'm being serious, grabbing some guy's dick and trying to rip it off?
Mom: GASP! James Charles Nason! Don't you speak to your mother like that!
Me: I'm being serious! ...cuz that's what it's going to take. That's the cold reality of it. Because no one's going to want to rape you with their penis barely hanging on to their body, you know?
Mom: ...yes... and that was brought up in the class too. But it's more than just...grabbing a man... down there. There's a lot more.
Me: Like eye gouging and knee thrusts and throat punches, right?
Mom: Yes. I don't like the throat punches though.
Me: Why not?
Mom: Because... you have to like, push your... fingers, like two fingers there, push them down into their... throat. Ew, it's gross just thinking about it.
Me: It's not gross, it's survival; everything you're being taught is considered "less than lethal," for that reason. Jabbing your fingers down into a guy's throat isn't going to kill him, just back him off. These techniques are designed so that you can utilize them when the times comes and not feel hesitant that you're going to kill the poor son of a bitch. No man's ever died, that I know of, from getting kicked in the groin, you know? Or eyes gouged or whatever.
Mom: Yeah.
Me: I mean... if you WANT to learn how to kill someone with your bare hands, I can show you a thing or two...
Mom: No, no, that's... uh ok, I'm fine with that.
Me: You sure?
Mom: Yes James.
Me: .... Fine. Is dad around?

So yeah hear this criminals: if you're stalking around Portland or Biddeford or anywhere in between, you better watch out... my fifty-something year old mother will fuck up your whole day.

My Dad And Text Messaging

(The Scene: In my kitchen at my parents' house, drinking a beer with my dad on a Monday afternoon)

Dad: Hey, show me how to send you text messages on my phone to your phone!
Me: No.
Dad: Come on, we can text!
Me: No.
Dad: Why not!
Me: Because.... your phone doesn't... get texts.
Dad: Yes it does, Gillis sent me a text yesterday, but I didn't know how to text back!
Me: You're not texting me.
Dad: You have that fancy-ass blueberry [sic] phone, and I see you texting all the time, I want to text too!
Me: No.
Dad: You suck as a son.