Stylehack

Mom-ism     [n., plural Mom-isms, from the root words: My Mom, circa 1996.] 1. An embarrassing gaffe, made publicly or privately (if you thereafter make it public), causing those around you to look at you with a mixture of pity, shame, horror and glee. All enveloped in gales of hysterical hooting and finger pointing. 2. Not to be confused with momism.

My family has been tracking Mom-isms for 28 years or more now, give or take a few years. That’s actively tracking… we also have a collection of some earlier Mom-isms from a time when we were too young to know what they were or to commit them ourselves. WHAT? Yep, that’s right — you don’t have to be Mom to commit them! In fact, you don’t even have to be female, just ask my Dad. “-) As the eldest child, it’s my duty (not to mention privilege) to act as the guardian of the Repository of Family Hoots — the first and foremost of which are Mom-isms. Still not sure what you will find here? Let me give you a quintessential example: Setting: Family vacation, Maui Hawaii, late 1980s, great room in rented condo Background: We had been to a luau and Mom had bought a cassette tape of the music, forget the guy’s name… Jesse something. [And yes, we went whole hog -- flowered muumuus, leis, Mom even got up on stage and learned to hula and "hootchie cootchie", I kid you not... we bought the video. grin] Cut to scene of Mom playingher new tape in stereo system cassette player…

[Mom]     Gary, what’s wrong with this tape? It sounds all wobbly or something. [Dad]       (walks over to take a look) [Mom]     It’s not set on FM. Change it from AM to FM. [Dad]       (pitying look of disbelief on face) [Becky, Molly & Laura]      (screeching laughter, hooting and gasping for breath) [Mom]     What?

ROFL! Ok, as a friend of mine is wont to say: That’s funny, I don’t care WHO you are! “-) And now you have an idea of the goodies that will appear here. Feel sorry for Mom? Don’t! For one thing, she is the first to tell on herself. hahaha! For another, she actually coined this as a family term. And the capper is that as we have aged all 6 of us (sons and daughters alike), plus Dad, have committed “Mom-isms” more often than we like to admit. So no one will be immune from being mentioned here for posterity. ps. For those of you still shaking your head over ~why~ the story above is a Mom-ism, well… I sure would like to hear some of your stories too! “-) pps. Yes, I still have my muumuu. No you can’t see it, nor pictures either! At least for now. Send cash and we’ll see.