Woods' Law: My Mother will Always be a Mother - January 31, 2007
My mother is the prototypical Liberal Arts Major. She has no viable skills and lacks even the most basic idea of how the world really works on a purely mechanical level. All of her life she has coasted by on faux intelligence and paper shuffling. She repeats catch phases from literature, like a highly intelligent parrot, gauging the worth of the ideas more from the reactions of other people than from their own internal merit. Which leads me to the two men I hate most in all of philosophy: Emerson and Thoreau.
I don't really hate these men for any reason other than the hell they put me though as a child. I have read their works as an adult and found them at times to be fairly reasonable. Still I cannot bring myself to not hate them. The ideas these men held about nature nearly got me killed.
Listening to my mother explain Transcendentalism will leave one sorely disappointed in the American educational system. "Umm... you see... everything outside is just so 'beautiful' and 'harmonious' and you can really see how it all fits into 'God's will... and uh... stuff.'" There's nothing more I hate than hippy assholes who think they can go out into the wild and remain unscathed simply because they "understand" the animals more than others. My mother, however, truly believes that if she just "believes" enough then reality will warp itself into something kinder.
I was seven. Watching the movie "Bambi" was the sum of my experience with deer. It was early September, and I was wearing my winter jacket, looking like the plump little boy from "A Christmas Story." I was just about to go outside and play when my mother looked out the back window and said "Oh lord... Brandon! Come look! Deer! There are DEER in our lawn!"
Not particularly excited, I went over to the window to see a doe and her fawn eating the expensive flowers my grandmother had bought for my mother as house-warming gift (we lived next to a large forest). "Can I go play now mom?"
"No... Brandon... this is magical. Go get your sister. She needs to see this too."
Already preparing for a hair-tugging and a face-scratching I went and got the demon I would later call Thunder Cunt, and told her that our mom wanted her. My sister had the enormous master bedroom at the top of the house. I slept in the bathroom that my parents had converted upon my birth. When I was little I could put my arms out in a circle and spin around. Today? Not so much.
With her Neanderthal-like brain, my sister crammed a gram cracker in her gullet and asked, "What does she need me for?"
"There are deer in the back lawn."
In between wide, open mouthed chomps on her sugary meal she asked, "Who gives a fuck?" For a nine year old she had such a lovely mouth.
Knowing that Rachel's refusal to come downstairs would somehow become my fault I tried one more time. "I don't know, Rachel. Mom wants you to see it."
After I made mention of the fact that there was more food downstairs that she could eat, we both headed toward my mother at the back window. All the way there my sister stepped on the heels of my shoes, and poked me in the back.
"Look honey!" my mom said putting her arm around my sister, pushing me to the back, and blocking my view. "Look at the deer! Aren't they majestic?"
My sister agreed that they were.
And this is when disaster struck. "You two should go out and pet them. They won't mind little children like you!" In her view, since both the deer and I are "innocents" of nature the animal won't mind me getting close to it. No one who has read a science book in the past four hundred years would feel this way.
However, as I was seven, unaccustomed to the law of the jungle and still sadly wanted my mother to love me as much as she loved my sister, I opened the back door and went outside. Given a chance to go back in time I would have just head-butt my mother in the vagina and taken a nap.
With my sister pushing me forward like a high ranking German officer testing for land-mines in WWII and my mother making emphatic "shove gestures" at me from the doorway, I put my hand on the flank of the fawn.
Biggest.Fucking.Mistake.Ever.
The fawn did just two things. It turned its head from its meal and looked at me like it was Samuel L. Jackson and I was a Snake on a Plane. Then it lifted its hind legs and kicked.
Thankfully I was tall for my age, or I imagine I'd be telling you about the deer that permanently deformed my jaw. As it was, the fawn's hind legs hit me square in my coat-protected chest and I flew backward in a majestic, chest crushing arc.
I hit the ground with a thud, tried to breathe, and could not.
My mother rushed out to me and told me that I was going to be okay. Then asked my sister to go inside because "you shouldn't have to look at him this way." I laid there on the cold September ground. The two deer ate their hundred-dollar flower meal and my mother tried to comfort my sister. As I struggled for breath, I realized one thing:
I really need a new family.
Posted by BC Woods at 12:05 AM
Print Friendly · Digg it · del.icio.us · StumbleUpon · Netscape
Comment Policy:
Anonymous comments are allowed. All anonymous comments and comments from those not registered with TypeKey are moderated. They WILL NOT appear until they are read and approved by a moderator.
It is strongly encouraged that you sign up and login with a TypeKey account. Once you do that, your comments will be immediately posted.
Comments
Personally, I call Thoreau Thunder-Cunt. Like you, it's not that I find his ideas so appalling- it's that he presents them in such a sanctimonious way as to invite hatred from all people who aren't similarly enormous douchebags.
Your mother didn't like the smell of her own farts by any chance, did she?
Posted by: Chris at January 31, 2007 01:28 AM
Gosh. I really hate your sister... and I don't even know her.
Posted by: GPT987 at January 31, 2007 01:39 AM
Pretentious nature-lovers. You gotta love to hate 'em. Good stuff man.
Posted by: Wobbo at January 31, 2007 02:18 AM
There are people that can have your family killed.
I'm not saying I'm one of them, but I'm sure they're not too hard to find.
Just think about it.
Posted by: fatal at January 31, 2007 02:23 AM
Fabulous, just fabulous. The snakes of a plane reference made me blow my load all over the keyboard. It was so great.
Posted by: Pere Kermann at January 31, 2007 03:32 AM
Good story, good writing. First time reading your work, but I'm always willing to give Rudius writers a chance. Keep it up!
Posted by: Joe at January 31, 2007 04:54 AM
I can't believe your sister exists to this day
Posted by: Adam Saleh at January 31, 2007 07:22 AM
I would like to nominate your mom for the Parent of the Century award.
Posted by: BigChops at January 31, 2007 09:25 AM
Please please please tell me you have told off your sister by now maybe she has grown enough to be a semi functional human being but, please if she is still a shitstain find a way to screw her over I know I would and furthermore I know a persons mother will always be a mother but to the casual observer she is still the worlds biggest knucklefuck.
Posted by: Andrew at January 31, 2007 11:07 AM
Not a chance you walked up to a fawn in the company of a doe and put your hand on it. Not a chance.
Sorry guys- I'm not trying to be disparaging, but I'm having a tough time believing some of the more key aspects of some of these stories. The writing's decent, and I like the storylines, but either keep them believable or call them "fiction".
Posted by: Ryan at January 31, 2007 11:29 AM
Hello Ryan,
I can understand your disbelief and that's why I published your comment. Also, because you didn't just say "Fuck damn shit cock liar," as others might have.
I grew up a few blocks from a funeral home in a place called Aberdeen, Washington. No one ever hunted for deer in that area so they grew to be quite bold.
They quite commonly walk near people with very little concern where I lived. I was walking to school one day and three were walking along behind me, and I didn't notice until someone honked their horn at me.
Also, do a youtube search. Deer have attacked people before. Don't let Bambi fool you. They're not your friends.
Sincerely,
BC
Posted by: BC Woods at January 31, 2007 11:37 AM
BC - can you give us an update on where your sister is now? Jail perhaps? Would LOVE to hear that you have triumphed over her in some way. Although being a lucid and linear thinker may be all that is needed... Love your writing!
Posted by: Cindy at January 31, 2007 11:55 AM
Another great piece - good work peanut.
Posted by: Ms. Mann at January 31, 2007 12:48 PM
I swear, Bambi is doing more damage to impressionable minds by making everyone think that deer are so adorable and it's bad to control the population. I would've gotten my bow (compound or recurve, depending on what was easier to get) and gotten a good shot at that distance... but this is coming from someone who's done a lot of population modelling and has seen first-hand what deer overpopulation does to an ecosystem is itching for a good hunt!
Posted by: RecurveHawk at January 31, 2007 05:18 PM
This post was my favorite of yours so far BC. I want to kick your sister.
Posted by: christi lee at January 31, 2007 06:49 PM
I'm sorry, but one thing struck me here that we've all kind of glossed over - your SISTER had the master bedroom? What the FUCK?
Posted by: Echo at January 31, 2007 09:19 PM
I'm with Andrew. This story is bullshit. I really enjoy the site and dig most of what I've read so far but I'm from Indiana and there are THOUSANDS OF DEERHUNTERS here that are 10 million times stealthier than a purported seven year old. These cats freeze their ass off for hours sitting on icy deer stands just to catch a bead on a deer like the one you describe.
No way this happened. Not on this planet.
If it's fiction then call it that.
Posted by: Joe Smith at February 1, 2007 02:24 AM
Is your mom's name Kathy? :) Seriously, though, I think you described my mom in there. She used to tell me that if I didn't keep the cordless phone on the hook it would render all of the phones in the house useless. And I was her servant until I figured out what slave labor was... Good ole mom.
Posted by: Stephanie at February 1, 2007 03:52 PM
In regards to the comment Ryan left, I can back up Brandon here. I am also from Aberdeen and I grew up less than five blocks from him. There is a delicious apple tree in my back yard and every year a family of deer come to eat the fallen apples.
Well during that time of year, at least twice a month I'll be walking home, cut through my backyard, and I won't notice that there's a family of deer there until I'm less than ten feet away from them. Most times they won't even budge unless I chase them.
Posted by: Kamalmanzukie at February 1, 2007 11:19 PM
BC:
deer are the same way in my hometown-i have fed more than a few of them out of my bare hand. i believe it.
Posted by: Lorna at February 2, 2007 03:07 PM
Kill your family. They obviously deserve it, BC.
Posted by: Beavis at February 2, 2007 07:13 PM
I am surprised you actually got close enough to touch the deer........
EDIT FROM BC: Read the comment above.
Posted by: taves at February 5, 2007 12:07 PM
To your mother, both you and your sister are an extension of her own self - you don't really "exist" as independent people with your own thoughts and feelings.
I'll bet your mother was treated horribly by her parents, and had a "Golden Boy" brother who could do no wrong. Your sister represents herself as a child, a living metaphor that she uses to right past wrongs. Treating her well at your expense is an effort to settle the score.
Needless to say, this does not work.
And, if it helps, your sister probably feels as bad or worse than you, lashing out to compensate for self-hatred. Failure to provide boundaries is abusive, too.
Posted by: liam at February 5, 2007 08:06 PM
Great story... I remember that one from the TMMB
Posted by: corkhead32 at February 6, 2007 11:58 PM
You're a good writer, but you are starting to excessively use analogies, the final straw being Samuel L Jackson and SOAP. Scale that back some and you'll continue to go places.
Two Cents
Posted by: Two_Cents at February 8, 2007 08:28 PM
Great blog. It's nice to be here! universal corner becomes profound TV in final
Posted by: table will circle unconditionally at February 25, 2007 06:11 AM
to bad deer don't kick with their back legs, they use their front legs. Horses on the other hand do kick with their back legs
FROM BC: Well, it kicked me, so evidently lifting its back leg and pushing back isn't an impossible feat.
Posted by: Garret at March 6, 2007 03:18 PM
Naysayers: I grew up next to a state park in WV. Deer acclimated to humans will let you touch them, and yes, they will kick with whatever appendage is free at the time. Deer are mean motherfuckers.
"Which leads me to the two men I hate most in all of philosophy: Emerson and Thoreau."
You totally won me with this statement, BC. My senior year creative writing teacher was a huge fan of Transcendentalists and I left that class with a 25% because I was not.
Posted by: Anonymous at April 10, 2007 12:33 PM
Post a comment
