Introductions - Sh** My Mom Knows

My mom knows everything, and as much as it pains me to admit it, it's an irrefutable fact. I don't mean she's a quantum physicist (she's not) or has a photographic memory (she doesn't) but she does know the lyrics to any song you can think up from 1950 on, can do a mean crossword, can hook up all kinds of electronics and can answer just about any question I can think up (within reason, mostly because I'm not terribly imaginative). More and more I find she can solve whatever day- to- day conundrum I can think up, especially so since I've had children. I find myself calling her and getting the solution within a matter of moments. What's more, if she doesn't have the solution, she reaches into her bottomless bag of resources - including but not limited to: phone book (yup she still uses), newspaper (still gets it delivered, mainly for comics and crossword), or friend of a friend among her favorites. My mother is the queen of the friend of a friend who knows so and so or has had such and such happen to them or their mail carrier's cousin.

As a kid, I was hesitant to ask my mother questions. Her responses ran the gamut: how the hell do I know, I failed Spanish and just call the Brooklyn Public Library were among her most frequent responses. Maybe taking care of two kids, a husband and a household left little time for her to really show her true abilities for problem solving. It didn't strike me as odd at the time as my grandmothers didn't seem to offer much in the world of advice. One cooked exclusively in plastic bags and the other suggested either that you either "put butter on it" or "sit on the pot" as the answers to most questions.

I am nearly thirty-seven years old and recently had an epiphany, a come to mother if you will. My mother beats Google hands down. Her correct response stats are pretty phenomenal and I don't have to sift through endless information or wonder if the information is correct (thinking wikipedia here). My first thought when I encounter an issue that my useless brain cannot compute is to call or email my mother. She doesn't fail. With this in mind, my next thought was 'who am I to keep this all to myself'. When you find out something good, you gotta share, right? And, here we are.

This weeks tip: Cellphones plus water equals bad, another irrefutable fact. My husband discovered this recently when he jumped in the pool, wearing all of his clothes, with his cellphone in his pocket (another story, another day). The car keys were in there too, but the alarm button didn't seem the least bit affected. Anyway, later that night, as we were bemoaning having to get a new phone (and of course we don't have cell phone insurance), my mom suggested rice. Yup, take battery out, put the phone in a ziploc baggie with rice and leave overnight. "Try it, whaddya got to lose?" she implored. Well, sure as shit, it worked. We didn't have white rice, but as it turns out long grain and wild rice from Rice-A-Roni works too (minus spice packets). Less rice, but same phone! When I asked her how she knew to do that, she told me "I saw it on All My Children". Huh.