This narrative is the product of interviews with three of the parties involved in this familial misunderstanding.
MumMum was a petite, fifty-five-year-old matriarch living in a large Baltimore City house with her family. MumMum lived with her daughter, her son-in-law, her adult son, and her granddaughter, who was a mere ten months old, still in the highchair at the dinner table.
When dinner was served, the daughter seemed angry. When the son-in-law asked her what was the matter, she got up from the table, went to a drawer, pulled out a condom wrapper, and snarled “We don’t use condoms. What whore have you been screwing while I’ve been dealing with post partum!” and then tossed the wrapper on the table as the son said, “Oh, gross!”
Tired from the day’s work, the son-in-law said, pointing to the wrapper, “In my defense, that thing would fall right off of me. That’s a cannon wrapper—look, it’s a magnum extra-large!”
Stymied in her quest to assign blame, the daughter pointed her finger at her brother, and said, “What’s the matter with you, Dwayne. I might have found this when Joey was asleep and dropped the end table on his head. You need to clean up after yourself!”
Dwayne leaned back and spread his hands, not wanting to get beat up by his big sister for like the one hundredth time, and said, “Hey, Siss, I take after Dad. I wish I could wear one of those, but I’m as bad off as Joey in that department.”
The daughter than said, “Well then, who…?” and turned toward MumMum, who was sitting there with a small grin on her face. All eyes were now on MumMum, even those of the baby, as her daughter continued the condom wrapper inquest, “Mom?”
To which MumMum said, “Well, I’m not dead. Allen comes over for lunch a couple times a week and I wash his clothes.”
The men sat back with big Os of astonishment playing on their mouths as the baby said, “MumMum” and her mother said, “Mom! How could you?”
To which MumMum said, “How could I? I popped out your fat head in five minutes. I might be little, but I’m no C-section sissy—I like to have my fun too, you know!”
The men laughed loudly, as the baby raised her spoon on high, cheering on MumMum, who was her favorite adult and was winning besides. The daughter stormed out of the room growling, “Oooo, yuck—TMI!”
To which MumMum retorted, “A little jealous, aren’t we? Maybe if you smiled every once in a while—” then remembered her son-in-law and seeing the hurt look on his face, waved it away and said, “Oh, you’re all she deserves. You’re fine. Just don’t lose your job.”
Allen was a man who normally charged a fee to spend time with a lady, but had this one particular lady friend who fed him and washed his clothes in return for his noontime attention of the equine kind. MumMum was that lady, and had laundered his clothes, letting loose the wrapper of discord in the dryer.
A week or two later MumMum invited Allen over for dinner. As he approached the table he saw the daughter looking down at the table in disgust with her head in her hands and both of the men stood to great him, “Hey, Magnum, what’s up!” to which the daughter left the room in disgust and the baby began trying to say Magnum, which was just about in her grasp, with her command of Mom and MumMum already well-established.
