The Time I Went Mother Shopping

I was in the sixth grade, 11 years old, My mom had left when I was about 5 and my parents had a custody battle that lasted about 5 years. So I had been living happily with my Dad and my Brother for about 2 years. I was vaguely aware that a woman from Minnesota had been writing my father letters. I knew she had 9 kids and she lived in a suburb of the Twin Cities. We knew a family that lived in the Twin Cities and one of their boys was trying to impress one of my step mother's daughters so he gave her my dad's address and said he was looking for a good wife, What I didn't know was that my dad had written back to her, and had gotten brave and called her.

One day I came home from school and I was told to pack a bag we were leaving for Minnesota. That wasn't really unusual, if my dad planned things in advance he was not in the habit of sharing his plans with us. So I packed a bag and we got in our Ford Fiesta and drove into town to pick up my oldest brother and his wife and off we went to visit our friends, or so I thought. It took about 12 hours to get to their house so we left in the evening and drove all night, Also not unusaul so I saw nothing comming but a nice visit with our friends. But my brothers were more aware than me. They knew that my dad wanted to meet this woman. And they knew that she had no idea we were there and that my dad might just chicken out on the whole thing.

My older brother took matters into his own hands and called her. He told her we were in the City and dad wanted to meet her. She invited us over for dinner with her entire family, Eight of her nine kids, two sons-in-law, one daughter-in-law and three grandkids. He hung up the phone and told us it was all set, he had directions and a time we were supposed to show up.

So we all put on the best clothes we had brought, for me that was a dress, which I absolutely hated but I was outnumbered. When the time came we got in the fiesta and headed to her house. When we got there my dad was going to chicken out. He was pausing in front of her house and he was going to drive off, but my oldest brother stepped out of the still moving car and went up and knocked on the door. So dad had to pull in the driveway and we all had to get out.

Her entire family was there, all dressed in their best clothes. Theirs hadn't been in a small car all night. Pleasantries and introductions followed. She had a huge table and most of us fit at it. So we all sat down to eat the nice meal. All I remember about the actual food was that we had chocolate pudding in fancy little desert cups, more on that later.

Things started off ok, plates were filled, some questions were asked, polite conversation was happening and then it got quiet, and then it got awkward. Then it got painful. Then my genius older brother who was almost 17 took matters into his own hands again and I kid you not he sang the entire theme song to the Brady Bunch. Not one person joined in. Every one just looked at him. After that more effort was put into keeping conversation going. My contribution to the festivities was to spill the chocolate pudding on my white dress. My step-mother and one of her daughters tried to help clean me up, and when we got home my sister-in-law tried to wash it out but the stain never came out, I didn't care that dress had no pockets so I hated it.

After that we went back to our friends house and eventually back home. I had to go back to school, and I needed a note to excuse my absence. So my father sent me to sixth grade with this note. "Please excuse Heather for missing school we were in Minnesota Mother shopping." After that I spent considerable time mastering his handwriting and his signature so I could throw away his notes and write my own!