I see my mother standing at the kitchen sink. She is washing the breakfast dishes and humming to herself. All is well in her world. Her children fed, her husband off to work with nothing pressing. She is oblivious to me and that is the way I want it. I sneak in a little closer, quiet as a cockroach - this is going to be so good.

She stops her humming and listens. I pause. She looks out the frilly curtained window and smiles when she observes my brothers and sisters happily jumping on the trampoline. I hope she doesn’t take a head count, it would ruin my plan. She starts to sing while she washes another glass. I move in closer to my prize.

Her legs are bare from her knees down. Her flowered apron tied in a big bow behind her back. She has a dish towel slung across her shoulder, and her feet are adorned with a flattened old pair of flip flops, her favorite house shoes. Her skirt is a checkered print, reminding me of a checkers board, and it is my move.

Like a striking snake, I spring and run my cold little tickling fingers up the back of her legs. I am not disappointed, she comes unglued.

“SHIT!” She shrieks as she comes off the floor like a rocket and spins in mid-air. Not seeing or caring about her grinning little son, she wraps the wet dish rag she’s holding around his poor little unprotected head while the glass she was washing goes on a trip of its own, crashing into the wall at a hundred miles an hour. Her welted little tormentor is showered in broken glass and cries out in agony as the shards jab into his hands and behind as he tries to scurry back.

Mom regains her sanity quickly and her love and concern kicks in. She picks my bleeding carcass off the floor and tends to my wounds. The stinging red welt around my face shakes her.

“Oh son, I could have put your eye out! Why are you so ornery? After patching me up she kisses me and shakes her head wondering what sort of little monster she birthed. With a grim look takes me by the hand and leads me to the front door, opens it and kicks me out, slams it shut and that’s that. I doubt highly if I’ll get fed for the next year. I had a lot to think about. It took me a while but I finally managed to build a working robot out of my erector set.

Mom was singing to herself at the dish sink, totally obvious to the world around her. My short little robot moved slowly in behind her. Its outstretched arm pointed upwards and in its mechanical fingers an ice cube. There was nothing in the world better than watching my usually calm and serene mother bounce off the ceiling. Man, this was going to be bad---I wouldn't get a thing for Christmas; I didn’t think my robot would survive either.

End