The Funny Farm

by Ellie Kay

Back in España, when de mamacitas want to wean a baby who do not want to be weaned, they put the tail of a squirrel into their shirts and when de young child opens his mamacita’s blouse—ooooh! A furry tail makes dem no want to eat dere no more! ~Paquita Macias Rawleigh (my mom)

When I had five babies in seven years and faced the formidable task of being a single mom much of the time (due to Bob’s deployment schedule), I knew that I was going to have to practice something my mama always preached: learn to look at life with a sense of humor or you may end up on the funny farm.

My mom is from Spain and should rightly be called mamacita. The combination of my Texas drawl and her Spanish accent makes for quite the linguistic challenge. But I didn’t always appreciate my mom’s accent, no more than my kids appreciate me yelling across the school parking lot, “Now, y’all don’t ferget your permission slips!”

When I was a teen, I went through the “Brady Bunch Syndrome.” You remember that, don’t you? It’s where Jan, the middle girl, was always walking in her sister’s shadow. “Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!” Jan would bemoan, “It’s always about her!”

During this topsy-turvy time in my teens, I pulled my Mom aside and said, “Mom, can I talk to you a moment?” Paquita replied to me, “Chure, what do chew want to talk about?”

“Well, Mom, it’s about your accent.”

“What ax-cent? When I first come to de United States of Amereeka, I have an ax-cent. But I no have no ax-cent no more!” she responded with a straight face and a gleam in her eye. She loved to make people smile when she talked, and she would play her accent for laughs long before Sofia Vergara did in Modern Family.

“I know, Mom, you’ve really lost a whole lot of your accent. But there are still some words you say wrong. And when I’m around my friends from church, you sometimes embarrass me.”

“Well, I no embarrass you for nothing! Tell me de words and I will practeece them!”

“Mom, the other day you told my friend Donna that I cheated on my diet, and not only was I mortified you told her I went off my diet but the way you say the word cheat sounds like a dirty word!”

The rest of the day, as my mom cleaned the house, she was “practicing.”

As she dusted the lampshade, cleaned the bathroom mirror, or wiped down a kitchen counter she said, “My daughter, she sheet on her diet.”

***

My mom is now in her eighties, and things haven’t changed much. She knows she makes people chuckle with her snappy accent (which is just as thick as it always was) and her unique outlook. She recently decided to look into doing something that would make her look younger. About thirty years ago, someone told her that if she plucked out all her eyebrows, they would grow back fuller and thicker. So she did. But they never grew back—at all. So, all these years, she’s had to draw them on with an eyebrow pencil.

She explains the problem like this: “When I was junger, it was okay. I could see just fine. But now, I no see so good. It is hard with my bifocals to see what I doing.

“Some days, I look very surprised!”

(When her eyebrows are too high.)

“Other days, I look ver-ry angry!”

(When she draws them on too straight.)

“And some days I just look confused!”

(When she has one of each.)

She went to an upscale beauty salon in her neighborhood to see what they would charge for permanent cosmetics that would give her a “happy” look. She entered the salon, went to the front desk, and boldly asked, “Hell-O? Can chew make me look twenty jeers junger?”

The receptionist looked baffled and went to get the cosmetic technician, who took an instant liking to my mom and quoted her such a good price for new eyebrows that my feisty mamacita replied, “Oooh, that is a verrry good price! Tell me, is it for one eyebrow—or two?”

The tech laughed out loud and replied, “Well, for you, Paquita, it’s a ‘buy one–get one free’ special!”

***

One of the best gifts my mom gave me was her ability to find humor in any given situation. Her life was not an easy one. Her father was imprisoned for being “on the wrong side” during the Spanish Revolution (the choices were communism or socialism). Consequently, she grew up with a single mom who was quite needy. Then my mom met my dad and left the familiarity of Spain to adapt to a new country, a new culture, and a new life. Although my own mom wasn’t perfect (what mother is?), she certainly tried hard to rise above her challenging circumstances, assisted by the buoyancy of humor.

So the next time your toddler takes off his dirty diaper while in his crib and whirls it around the room, or the next time you accidentally use Desitin instead of Crest to brush your teeth, or if you investigate the sudden “silence” of your child only to discover she’s smeared lipstick all over your new designer pillows, do yourself a favor—lighten up, laugh, and lower your expectations for the day. Who knows? Maybe one day you’ll write your story and have other mothers rolling in laughter!

A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.

Proverbs 17:22 NIV