It’s Mother’s Day. I fill the mower's gas tank then press the prime button exactly twenty times—last season’s stubborn requirement. After four pulls, the relic sputters, lurches, then dies a smokey death in shin high weeds. A chorus of mowers continues to sound through the cul-de-sac. A duet actually, as mine refuses to cooperate. Across the court, Friend #1 is seven swipes into conquering her suburban prairie while Friend #2 stops to pummel her mower with a hammer. Between us, we have one late husband, two exes, and four teenagers. Friend #1 yells, "What’s wrong with this picture?" and minutes later we are laughing together in shaggy grass with three Solo cups and a bottle of wine.
This is the Erma Effect. To see and to be seen. To validate and to be validated. To know that when you are scraping mushy dog poo off a toddler’s shoe and she repays you by puking beets and carrots down your back, you are not alone. A posse of women, before you and yet to come, hoists you up with universal atta girls until you can stand on your own.
Eleven-year-old me knots a macrame belt on the living room floor as Mom scours Good Housekeeping magazine for tips on how to feed eight people on a five person budget. I glance over her shoulder at dessert recipes—chocolate mousse pie, brownies extraordinaire, mint chocolate cookie stacks. Partway through the magazine, the cloud over my mom’s head shifts. “You’re darn right!” she declares, then cuts something out of the pages and tapes it on the copper fridge.
Not connecting the two but drawn to the refrigerator in hopes of discovering a plate of double-chocolate buttercream squares, I scan the shelves wondering why the fridge curator hasn’t stocked it with the velvety desserts featured in the recipes article. Especially because earlier in the day, said curator had time to curl up on a pile of dirty clothes next to the washing machine and take a nap. I mean, really, where were my elaborate snacks? The only food products I see are partially thawed waffles, mistakenly tossed in the fridge instead of the freezer, ten pounds of frog legs Dad bought because they were on sale, five dozen eggs, and a half empty (or half-full?) bottle of Cold Duck.
Dejected, I close the fridge door and the column my mom had just clipped slides down the fridge, its magnet clearly also not doing its job. I move the clipping back into place and the word “hurl” catches my eye. I read Erma’s words. And I get it. Motherhood is hard work. Motherhood is operating in the background so everyone else can take center stage, with full bellies, mostly mowed lawns, and freshly washed soccer uniforms.
So if you see a woman in the basement snoring on a pile of laundry, cover her up with a clean towel and leave a bottle of Merlot next to a Solo cup in the laundry basket. She’ll thank you when she wakes up.
And don’t forget to thank Erma.
—Aline Pusecker Taylor
“Pride Goeth Before the Fall Parent–Teacher Conference" won the 2024 Erma Bombeck Writing Competition in the local humor category. “For Landon” was a finalist in the Tom Howard/John H. Reid poetry contest. Additional work by Aline Pusecker Taylor has appeared in Literary Mama, Better than Starbucks magazine, The Penmen Review, The Pudding magazine, The Saturday Evening Post, and other publications. Along with her novel-in-progress, a collection of humorous essays is in the works.