Anna Belle

SSS's mother was truly a piece of work. I never did really figure her out, and I've never met anyone quite like her. Only one fictional character seems at all similar, and that's Hyacinth Bucket from "Keeping Up Appearances." Anna Belle was from the Midwest, and had never set foot in England, but I think she would have recognized Hyacinth as a kindred spirit.

I won't say she suffered from OCD, because I'm not sure that disorder had been invented in her lifetime, but she had her little quirks. I was in her home in the early 70's, and she had a lot of terminally ugly huge ceramic ashtrays. Woe betide you if you ever used one. She would take it away and clean it every time you flicked an ash in it, which could add up to eight or ten times per cigarette. The smokers in the household carried their little beanbag ashtrays around, clutched defensively to their chests.

She had two sets of Christmas tree ornaments: blue balls with silver garland and red balls with gold garland. Every year she would stop and think which colours had been used last year, and use the other. There were no messy little paper-plate and tinfoil angels that her kids had made in school. No odd little whimsical things that friends had given her. Nothing but balls and garland. I've seen trees with more personality in grocery stores!

Her needs were simple. Good American polyester clothes, a new car every three years, a new piece of ruby jewelry for every birthday and anniversary and a never-ending supply of Budweiser in cans. She swore that it stayed colder in cans. She had a can in her hand every waking moment, unless somebody came to the door. Then she stashed it around the corner on the kitchen counter where it would be out of sight.

She insisted on spending exactly the same amount of money on each family member for Christmas. She liked to get them all the same thing. She had a son and a daughter, a son-in-law, a husband, and me. For Christmas in 1972, she decided to get everyone in the family a new coat. Her daughter, who was every bit as "high maintenance" as she, eventually found a coat she liked. Husband and Son-in-law were willing to go with the flow, and make a show of choosing the coats she had already picked out, stylishly ugly polyester sport jackets. SSS held out for an arctic parka--the kind with the orange lining and an edge of wolf fur around the hood. I didn't need a coat. I had an old sheepskin, unsheared, unpretty, totally practical, and very warm (they lived in northern Indiana). That coat smelled like sheep whenever it got wet, and I loved it. I was totally adamant that I did not want a coat. The argument had started around the beginning of November, and was still raging on Christmas Eve.

I had no idea what she would give me for Christmas, but I knew it would cost, to the penny, what those polyester coats, and Lori's fake fur, and SSS's parka had set her back. Actually, the parka was a bit cheaper than the rest, so SSS got a nice pair of gloves, as well. They carried the box over to me, and I could see that it was heavy. Not a coat, then. I had proved to be a further disappointment as a daughter-in-law because I refused to poke, shake, rattle, or otherwise try and guess what was in my presents.

The moment had come. I unwrapped, and unwrapped, and unwrapped some more; and beneath all the tissue and ribbon was the most wonderful present of all!

A sewing machine!

Anna Belle came through!