anda stories: what you don't know won't hurt you...

for those of you who've met my mother... or maybe just heard stories about her... you know that she is a funny little lady. she says and does quirky little things that make me laugh. sometimes I remember these stories and think, I should really write this shit down.

so here I go.

I was 22 and sitting in ASU's student health center. my feet planted on the ground, I was sitting hunched over with my elbows resting on my thighs and my head in my hands. as I stared around the room, my mind was lazily wandering through the typical waiting room thoughts: am I the next person to get called? oh, I hope I don't have what that guy's got. will this lady notice if I read that magazine over her shoulder?

then my attention was turned to my feet: I think I need new flip flops. or a pedicure. or... why does my left foot turn in like that??

what the eff?!

and from that point on, I kept noticing it... my awkwardly turned left foot:

when I would sit at desks. when I would get drunk and be standing up at a bar. when I would get nervous. when I would go to the bathroom. for weeks my attention turned toward my left foot and the way that it turned inward, ranging from a slight angle to almost ninety degrees, while my right foot unfailingly faced forward. it suddenly occurred to me that I might be a little pigeon-toed.

I was mildly distressed - having some tangential thoughts about feet and walking and shoes and arthritis and swaggering and general chiropractic and social health - and decided to bring it up to my mom while home for semester break. our conversation - the tiny exchange I'm about to write - took us all of twenty seconds, and sums up perfectly why I need to tell the stories about my mom: she is nothing if not truthful to a point of being slightly absurd. she is not ever deliberatly hurtful, but what she's thinking always seems to pop out in an innocent yet slightly socially incorrect manner. you know - the kind of thing that would induce the laugh-track if my life were a sitcom. and this was one of those moments:

me: mom, have you ever noticed... well, sometimes I look down at my feet, right? and I've noticed that my left foot kind of... well, it turns inward.

mom: (blank look)

me: I mean... I kind of think... and I don't want to over-react or anything... but I kind of think that I might be a little pigeon-toed.

mom: (relieved look, with an easy tone and a hand-wave through air in that swiping manner that tells the other person "no problem, no big deal!") oh! yeah! that! you're fine. we had that checked out when you were little, but the doctor said you'd turn out perfectly normally.

and that, friends, is my mom. I'm not quite sure I can do her as much justice in print as I can in person, but the more stories I tell, the better I'll be at it. keep reading.