She then proceeded to inform me that she was in the process of perming her own hair, and had half her hair up in curling rods. She told me that she was going to go to the bank and scream and yell and interrogate them while her hair was still half-rolled. I agreed, figuring they would be too intimidated by this madwoman in curlers to do anything but smile, nod, and accommodate. We agreed that this was the true definition of unconditional love.
While my mom and I were laughing at the image of her in curlers screaming at some refined lady, I happened to look across my room for a second and saw an even more hysterical image than this live and in person.
My roommate was on the floor, on her back, with a ruler and one of those cheap fiber-optic light toys that you buy for too much money at circuses, digging around between our two closets. When I recounted this tale to my mother, she said, "Well she must have lost something."
"Yeah, her mind," I responded. I continued the conversation with my mother, ignoring the fiasco in the corner of my room. Then I hung up the phone and glanced over to that end of my shoebox, and what do you think I saw? One of the closets had shimmied its was away from the wall, and was smack in the middle of the room. (Elephant in the living room, much?)
"What the hell are you doing?" I asked.
"I can't find my earring!" the closet whined.
"Oh."
So, although I wish I could have been around with a camera to see my mom driving around half in rollers and singing at the top of her lungs to Foreigner on the way to the bank, I got to see something almost as amusing without ever leaving the comfort of my own shoebox. I think I'm gonna start charging fifty cents a ticket for people to come stand in our doorway and laugh at how amusing my roommate and I are. Hey! We can even give out party favors, like that cute little fiber-optics toys over in the corner...