Cockamamie

I love my niece Morgan. She is smart, wicked funny, hard working, kind and helpful. She is also a smart ass and quite possibly the world’s worst driver. Ever since she realized she could get her Driving Permit at fifteen, she begged to drive. Of course this meant that by the time fifteen rolled around, dear Morgan was sure she already knew everything there was to know about driving, and she graduated herself a world class driver. Unfortunately, this is really only true if there are no other cars, humans, animals, traffic signals, speed limits, or state governments. She has been driving for almost four years, but spent a good six months of that with a suspended license courtesy of the State of Georgia. A friend’s head in the windshield of the Suburban she totaled…moving violations untold…accidents, bumpings and scratchings of other vehicles, and girfriend has yet to get a clue.

Now her need to reform her driving skills with intention is a topic for another day. Today’s topic is her current cockamamie scheme to get a new car. Morgan has an alcoholic truck to haul her horse around, but the car she was driving committed suicide on a mountain road. (Maybe it thought it should just give up before she plowed it into someone or something and it died a wretched mangled death?) Her parents found a reasonably priced used Jetta and began to investigate the soundness of the engine. When Sista told this to Morgan she said, “Well Mom, that sounds good, but I was thinking about getting a new Scion.” (Huh?) “The car costs only eighteen thousand dollars, and I found this really great loan where I can just pay the interest for ten years, and then start on the principle. The only catch is that I need you to co-sign.”

There really is nothing quite like paying down an eighteen thousand dollar loan on a ten year-old car!

I just about fell apart laughing til I pooted and cried when Sista told me this story.  Never fear I am laughing with my dear sweet Morgan! I know better than to laugh at her–I used to BE HER! The only difference to my cockamamie schemes were that they always contained an altruistic spin. If I had proposed this to Miss Audrey, I would have put it this way: “Mom, let’s borrow twenty thousand dollars–eighteen for the car and then I can give the other two thousand to charity!”

Let me give you a real example from the annals of my own childhood of my altruistic scheming: I once convinced my Cousin Bopper that we needed to stay up after our bedtime at our Grandmother’s house and then proceed to make Tollhouse Chocolate Cookies as a “surprise” for our family. You know, there is nothing quite like the early morning surprise of a freshly baked cookie. I could see my mother, aunts and Grandmother awaken at seven in the morning. They would pad out to the kitchen to begin making a breakfast of eggs, grits and sausage. And then it would hit them! They would want a chocolate chip cookie! But dear God there were none at my Grandmother’s house!  What horror and longing they would experience!  Someone had to come to their rescue, so I devised a plan to ensure their deepest desire and NEED would be met. (I am kind like that.)  Cousin Bopper and I would make the cookies! Oh the joy they would experience in the morning because of our willing sacrifice!

The plan was simple: We would stay awake until everyone went to sleep. We would get up and make the cookies. Of course our Grandmother’s home was not that big, and the sound of the beaters might wake up our family and ruin the surprise. The only solution to this problem was to make the cookies in my Grandmother’s single car garage--right on the hood of her white Fleetwood Cadillac!

Maybe we did not get in too much trouble when my Aunt Gail (Bopper’s Mama) found us in the garage because cockamamie schemes are a family tradition. Our mothers are just two of eight, so when family stories include thrown rotten tomatoes, diarrhea in the foyer of a neigbouring apartment building, and exploding cans of tar “someone” threw on a fire, they tend not too be too upset about making cookies on a Fleetwood.

Either that, or they too really wanted a Tollhouse with their morning coffee!

So here’s to Morgan and all the other women of my family who have yet to see a problem and not creatively come up with a cockamamie scheme and solution!