Redder than red
My mother ended up keeping Leta overnight on Friday so that Jon and I could celebrate his birthday to the fullest, if you know what I'm saying. Interestingly, I have received a dozen or so emails from male readers of this site that said something to the tune of yes, sex is good, but it doesn't come close to the iPhone. And then the signature of the email would say SENT FROM MY IPHONE 3G. Ladies, I think I just stumbled across our salvation.
It's like, sweetie, I know how much you'd love to stand here and twiddle my nipples all day, but I overheard someone talking about a new application for the iPhone, and if you don't hurry you're not going to have ANY IDEA what all those guys are Twittering about.
(I just read those first two paragraphs to Jon to see if he would be comfortable with me publishing those details, and he suggested that maybe it was time he Twittered my nipples. I'm taking that as a yes.)
After my mother dropped Leta off Saturday morning, we talked only for a few minutes before she had to head back out. This is the usual interaction we have with my mother, and rarely does she stay for more than five minutes in our living room. At first I thought it was because she has ADD. But then I realized it was because she was looking at those five minutes in my company as five minutes she could have been using to conquer the world. Selling more Avon than anyone else on earth is not enough. There must be other records out there that she could beat, other scores she could trample. And now that she's retired I get the feeling that all the avid bingo players in the world SHOULD BE VERY AFRAID.
After we hugged goodbye she headed out to our driveway to climb into her van, and then thirty seconds later she poked her head back inside our door waving our morning paper in her right hand.
"Here's your liberal propaganda!" she said as she tossed the paper on the floor of our entryway.
That liberal propaganda is The Salt Lake Tribune, the less conservative paper of the two that are circulated in Salt Lake City. Less conservative meaning that inside it you might find an op-ed from a scientist that talks about how we might want to think about conserving water. Because, oh, I don't know, we live in UTAH. A semiarid region. WHERE WATER IS NOT ABUNDANT. And then the following week you'd see an op-ed in the other, more conservative paper going THOSE LIBERALS WANT TO TAKE AWAY YOUR RIGHT TO HOSE OFF YOUR RIFLE IN YOUR OWN DRIVEWAY.
I wasn't about to let her get away with that, so I ran outside, knocked on her window as she was about to back out of the driveway, and when she rolled it down I pointed out that this liberal newspaper? It endorsed George W. Bush for president. TWICE.
This is where I live. A place where George W. Bush is not conservative enough.
And that's when she flipped me the bird. My mother, The Avon World Sales leader, waved her middle finger in my face. I sure hope she thought twice before she took the sacrament on Sunday.
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Court said:
Our newspapers in Oklahoma are the same - one is just slightly less conservative than the other (but that doesn't mean it is more liberal)!
07.28.08 - 12:40 PM / 1Sarah said:
I can forgive your mom for flipping you off because her Ultra Conservative Mormon Jesus was lucky for me. ;) Mormon Jesus may reconsider his generosity when there are Drunken Wii Olympic photos...
07.28.08 - 01:05 PM / 2dooce said:
ReCAPTCHA is having problems, making it nearly impossible to leave comments. Jon is currently looking into it. Stay tuned.
07.28.08 - 01:11 PM / 3Ms. Karen said:
I like your mom. She's a hoot. Except for the Mormon and Avon parts, I want to be just like her when I grow up.
07.28.08 - 01:11 PM / 4amyz5 said:
wow. (about the iphone discovery also, but that is not what i am wowing about here). i am in awe of how you can live in a place that is so opposite your mindset. must feel a bit like being an alien. (not that being an alien is a bad thing)
so i should keep telling all my friends here in NY that when they think they have any idea about what the rest of the country is thinking they are certainly dead wrong, right?
if george bush is not conservative enough... wait that sounds like the beginning of a really bad joke.
07.28.08 - 01:11 PM / 5Leesavee said:
Heather, having grown up (like you) in the deeply Southern Baptist regions to the east of Memphis, I totally get how George Bush can be "not conservative enough" for some people. That would be the reason I live in the Northeast now. 'Cause in Knoxville, they're shootin' up Unitarian churches because they're too liberal.
I'm so glad your mom has enough of a sense of humor that she'll flip you off, though. I expect that her middle finger is very well manicured.
07.28.08 - 01:22 PM / 6Andria and Co. said:
I like to imagine the posts from the title alone-- When, I saw "Redder than Red", I was thinking of the South Park, where they give the dog "Red Rockets". And then, I was imagine something along the lines of Chuck, and red rockets.
I think I need sleep. Or margaritas. Or, a husband who will have sex with me.
Yeah.
07.28.08 - 01:22 PM / 7That Sneaker Wearing Entrepreneurial Cartoonist Internet Guy said:
My wife and I just celebrated our 10 year anniversary last weekend. What did we do? We celebrated to the fullest at a hotel out of town AND bought each other iPhones!
Now if I could just get her to hose off my rifle in the driveway I'd be the luckiest man ALIVE!!
07.28.08 - 01:23 PM / 8Smilf said:
I just bought a new iPhone and I have to say that I can see where someone might think it's better than sex. I have a feeling I would have trouble convincing my husband though. Maybe with enough persistence... :)
07.28.08 - 01:23 PM / 9gingela5 said:
I'm saving up for an IPhone as we speak...I mean I love my husband but sometimes I just want some sleep! :)
07.28.08 - 01:23 PM / 10Madness said:
Madness husband will NEVER KNOW that the IPhone EXISTS because there is NO WAY Madness will miss out on SEX for any reason, what so ever.
And I too want to be your mom when I grow up.
Love,
Madness
07.28.08 - 01:23 PM / 11jill said:
and i'm betting that finger had a gloriously shiny, Avon-polished fingernail, adorned with a stylish, yet demure Avon cocktail ring. one only dreams of being flipped a bird so classy.
and re: recaptcha—i thought i was losing my mind.
07.28.08 - 01:24 PM / 12Gwyn said:
I wish Northwest Florida had newspapers or.. well... news for which to write. The big story this summer was a series of unsolved goat decapitations. Seriously.
07.28.08 - 01:24 PM / 13Adiel said:
This is got to be your funniest post in a long time. I'm laughing so hard right now and why is it funny? Because it's true!
07.28.08 - 01:24 PM / 14anna said:
I love that your mom flipped you off . . . and that she considers a Utah paper part of the "liberal media." HAH!
Signed,
Apparently Not Able to Read reCAPTCHA codes
07.28.08 - 01:24 PM / 15Windylou said:
I knew I liked your mom. Anyone over 50 who can comfortably flip their kid off is A-Ok in my book. Tell her and Rob hi for me sometime.
07.28.08 - 01:25 PM / 16Stacy said:
Ha! Your mom rocks! Oh, and I am going out to buy my husband an iphone right NOW.
07.28.08 - 01:25 PM / 17Twenty Four At Heart said:
I think our moms are related. My parents think I am "a left-wing extremist" because I flipped when my dad let my 6 and 8 year old shoot his gun. (I was not around, OBVIOUSLY!) All 6 and 8 year old kids need to join the NRA and start shooting guns, don't you agree? And if you don't you are a left-wing extremist. So I guess I am.
07.28.08 - 01:26 PM / 19katie said:
dude - going out to get my husband an iphone RIGHT NOW.
07.28.08 - 01:26 PM / 20LolaBloom said:
Speaking of world domination, how the heck am I supposed to succeed in that respect if I can't achieve #1 commenter position here?
I totally forget what I was going to say but in the spirit of Redder than Red....I'm redder than red from getting "The reCAPTCHA code you entered was incorrect" 48 times now. I'm about to flip you off too.... jk, nothing but luv for you H :)
07.28.08 - 01:26 PM / 21Marinka said:
Many, many people have that reaction to George W. Bush. Until I am presented with solid evidence to the contrary, I choose to believe that your mother's middle finger was reserved for him.
07.28.08 - 01:27 PM / 22Megan said:
I'm sorry... Was there more after the delicious bit of information that I can distract my husband with an iPhone? I couldn't concentrate...
::searching for iPhone promo materials::
07.28.08 - 01:27 PM / 23Jenny said:
Priceless.
I came from an ultra-conservative (Southern Baptist) background, have grown decidedly less so (on both fronts), and am in a similar situation it seems of having differing ideals than those I grew up around/with. Re-connecting with former classmates on Facebook is a rather amusing remdiner of this fact.
Case in point: Today a guy I went to school with long ago, someone I haven't spoken to in, oh, 13 years or so, left a comment on my Facebook page, saying "I see you're a supporter of Barack. You can't be serious?!?!?"
I actually didn't take this so much as "You crazy liberal, what's wrong with you?" as "Wait, you did that as a JOKE, right?"
I'm worlds apart from where I grew up. Seems you are too. Nice, huh?
07.28.08 - 01:28 PM / 24meowsk said:
That is hilarious! I think she may have earned herself a one way ticket to terrestrial heaven.
07.28.08 - 01:28 PM / 25ma2one said:
She would have a field day if you subscribed to the
NY Times.
07.28.08 - 01:29 PM / 26Dejoni said:
George Bush makes everyone want to fly the bird!
07.28.08 - 01:29 PM / 27Brandon said:
Priceless. I'm from Texas, so I can commiserate. Interestingly enough, I feel partially to blame for the current President (not that I voted for him for Gov. of Texas, but still, since I live here I do feel some responsibility, or at least guilt by association).
This story kind of reminds me of my parents, who don't really see what all the negative fuss about George Bush seems to be about. He seems like such a 'regular, likeable guy' in his speeches ;) I wish they would flip the bird more often, however. It would certainly make them more entertaining.
I do feel for you. I grew up being a bit of an ideological outsider in my former hometown in Texas, but at least we have the liberal enclave of Austin, which is exactly where I took my liberal butt after college.
07.28.08 - 01:29 PM / 28Stellare said:
Mothers are mothers. That's all. :-)
07.28.08 - 01:30 PM / 29Patrick said:
Ummm, the iPhone is not better than sex. Granted I can't use my wife's anatomy to locate a pizzeria via GPS or create a playlist of sexy song to NOT have sex to, but I can have sex with her. Man, I know married people are supposed to have less sex by law, but I never thought Apple would be a proponent of it.
07.28.08 - 01:30 PM / 30Salt City Girl said:
Going from the Reddest of the Red, to a lovely shade of bright blue I can sympathize. I still feel the need to read the SLTrib each morning though. Have you read any of the regular commenters on there? Scares the shit out of me!
07.28.08 - 01:30 PM / 31