Unauthorized Quotes

Through the years, my mother has unleashed a small dictionary of Southern squirrel-hating, scantily-clad-teenager-disapproving, folksy, unedited wisdom upon the world, much of which she denies.

A sampling:

Your hair does not say “success.”

I am going to give you a book party because you will never have a wedding.

Your heart is good but your mind is evil.

(To My Sister Becky)  Is Kathy a lesbian? It’s okay if she is.

(To my sister Becky, age nine, when she threw up at a Fourth of July picnic): Have a few more Cokes and brownies.

Kathy’s friend Alda:  Kathy is the most successful businesswoman I know.

My mother:  HA HA HA HA HA HA!  (laughing so hard she almost dropped phone)

Hell if I know.  (when asked the name of a long-lost cousin she fervently embraced at a reunion)

(Loving memories at the gravesite of an uncle while she was being taped by my sister for the family archives): He was a bastard and he belongs in hell.  (Stomps on grave)

(About her lifelong enemy, JT Slater):  I feel a peace about him after I stole his mustard greens.

(Showing off her blinding orange hair, the kind of color that, if it were on a Calico cat, would cause the cat to be put down immediately): I mixed two different hair colors myself.

(Upon meeting the first boyfriend I ever brought home): That boy looks dirty.  And he has a big nose.

(The story she ran around telling the neighbors after I refused to clobber a raccoon with a stick after it ate all the figs off her tree):

My daughter was willing to sacrifice the safety of her mother for a rabid raccoon!