Erma Bombeck Writing Competition - Winners
2006
Erma Bombeck Writing Competition
Honorable Mention
Humor - Global
Gabriella Papic
Toronto, Canada
"Mother Is the Necessity of Invention"
| Hubby and I were waiting until after the winter holidays to purchase much-needed necessities for our tiny apartment. While I secretly wished for an automatic espresso maker and hubby yearned for a husky pup, we really needed practical things like a vacuum cleaner and a humidifier. But when mum announced she was coming to stay for a week we had to act fast and moved the humidifier to the top of our priority list. Not to be indelicate, but the dry air from our baseboard heaters made mum snore like a racehorse. We headed to the electronics-appliance-nonsensical-gadgets store and asked to see a simple humidifier. The salesman smiled, revealing pointy teeth and a forked tongue. We followed him through a pit of electronic-vice until he stopped in front of something the size of a refrigerator. “Here it is,” he said, rubbing his hands together. “A state-of-the-art vaporizer-ionizer-purifier-humidifier with a 16 horsepower engine that produces warm, moist air. Cool air is no good folks. Loaded with bacteria. It’ll kill ya, or make ya very sick. This baby has an infrared eye that automatically adjusts the output based on the relative curvature of the earth and humidifies up to 9500 square feet.” Our apartment was 632 square feet. Hubby was making gurgling noises, and that special part of the male brain took over, the one that makes men believe that strippers are really just putting themselves through graduate school. He blurted out “we’ll take it.” “That’ll be $1500.00,” said the salesman. “We’ll take two,” said hubby . “No we won’t,” I said. “But the infrared light,” said hubby “it’ll keep your mum from getting sick.” Not to be insensitive, but mum took enough prescribed pharmaceuticals that she could have malaria, typhoid and the flu and still have energy to go outside and tell her neighbor that his garbage cans were technically on her side of the property line. So I wasn’t worried. Then I saw it: the espresso maker of my dreams. It was the countertop model that could grind and brew cups of bliss all day long. And it was on sale. I had a rare light-bulb moment. “On second-thought,” I said. “We’ll take this coffee-machine instead.” Back at the apartment, I put the coffee maker in the kitchen and set it to automatically brew one cup of espresso every fifteen minutes. All day, everyday, the aroma of fresh coffee filled the air along with a constant stream of hot, misty, bacteria-free humidity. Mum came and went and we all slept soundly. Soon after, we crossed another necessity off our list and got ourselves an organic vacuum cleaner; he’s a very friendly husky we named Hoover. |