June 25, 2008, 830am - My Mom’s Office

Mom: “I put an ad on the Internet for a man...”

Me: “You did??? 

I stop what I am doing and look up at her in shock. 

Me: Well, what did you say in the ad?” 

Mom: “I want to get screwed!” 

WHAT? 

I hear the words coming from my mother's mouth - but I cannot believe what they have said. 

Me: “You do? 

“Whose name did you use in the ad?”

Mom: “My own.”

I cannot believe it - any of it. My mom has put an ad on the Internet for a man and she has just told me in a whisper, at her office that she wants to get screwed? Worse still, she put her own name in the ad? That’s not even safe to do! My mother has lost her mind, but she seems perfectly capable to tell me about it...

This is not my mother. Not only is she is the most conservative woman on the planet, never drinking, never smoking, she has only had a few sexual partners in her whole life. 

Although we had had a very strong relationship, we had never discussed sex. She grew up in the 60‘s and the age of The Cleaver’s; I in the 80‘s in the age of Madonna. She was much too shy to ever talk to me about sex, and I never wanted to embarrass her. The day after I got my period I came home from school to a book lying on my bed. “Did you get the book?” That was the extent of our sex talk. 

The doctor had warned me - but I hadn’t believed her. I didn’t believe my mother would ever exhibit these symptoms.  “There is one more thing you need to know, people with this illness often lose their sexual inhibition and because of this they often exhibit sexual behaviors - in public” the doctor went on...”people with this disease have been known to take their clothes off, touch themselves, or someone else, in public.” Oh, thank god - I thought to myself, that’s one thing I don’t have to worry about - this is my mother you’re talking about. I would do something like that (with the right amount of alcohol) -  my mother? ha. She would never-ever do anything like that...

A few weeks later I pick my mum up at her office for an emergency road test (a test she thinks the doctor had requested). But it was me that scheduled it (and begged the road test people for the safety of all those on the road) after she pulled into three lanes of oncoming traffic and nearly killed us both. An hour prior to this incident, we were meeting at my office for lunch. She had gotten lost and parked on the other side of the city. I called the police and reported her as a missing person. That night I drove to her house stole the keys (and the car) and left a note telling her the doctor didn’t want her driving. She refused to listen. I was outsmarted. In the morning she had taken a taxi to my house and used the spare key. 

After the road test a woman calls from the Motor Vehicle's Office. My mother had failed the test. The official letter would be sent to her in the mail. I am devastated. My mother, the strong, courageous independent woman who ran her own company has lost her license. Our lives are changing at a pace I can’t keep up with. 

I vow to do everything in my power to protect her, and help her maintain her independence for as long as possible. I tell her I will find her a driver and he will drive her everywhere she needs to go. I go to bed early that night with the aid of a sleeping pill the doctor has prescribed. 

I wake up in the morning to a voicemail: 

“Hi darling it’s your mother, don’t worry about your mother, she is going to be fine, and you’re going to find me a driver and he’s going to drive me around and screw me...okay darling, bye-bye."

What? Did she really say that? I replay the message over and over again...yes, she said it. Okay. 

I call her and am careful to explain - that the person I hire to drive her will not be her sexual partner. She tells me she understands and that she will be happy with just a driver. 

The following day there is another message: 

“Hi darling it’s your mother. Have you found me a driver yet? Make sure he can get a hard-on...Okay? I love you, bye-bye”. 

Okay, in all honesty, I’m devastated, but I laugh my head off at the message. I think it is so funny I can’t believe it. This is not my mother, this is hilarious. 

For the next few weeks, I slide into a bubble of denial and try to pretend nothing is wrong. It had only been just over a year since I had moved back to Vancouver because I wanted to be closer to her. I had left in my mid-twenties trying to get as far away from her as I could (I made it as far as Edmonton, and then I came back to visit every 6 weeks). The further I went the better our relationship became. My mother had always wanted more of me than I could give. She wanted me to be her partner, her companion. I wanted to be out with friends traveling and living life. After I moved away she began to live her own life. That’s when things started to get really good between us. By my early 30’s I had made it as far as Toronto, but I wanted to move home because I wanted to be close to her and I didn’t want to lose time with her in the ‘later years’. 

A few Sunday’s later I call her from my cell phone as I am on my way over for breakfast “Can I bring anything? I’m on my way over." She replied, “You can bring me a man who will screw me.” 

My bubble bursts. We’re still here?  “Listen Mom” I say almost in anger, “I’m not finding you a man, okay? It is not my job to get you a man!,” I yell through my cell. “Tricia, I want you to find me a man who will screw me!” “Mom, who do you think I am? Do you think I have men hanging out of my pockets? What do you think - that I have a catalog full of men to choose from?” I scream so loud I almost lose my voice (and then feel instantly bad about it). Almost without hesitation she says: “Can you bring the catalog when you come for breakfast?” I shake my head in disbelief. 

You have got to be kidding? I have enough on my plate without worrying about trying to get my mother laid. I’m grieving, working full-time, and in the middle of a major renovation on my house. I am trying to get a more specific diagnosis in order to stabilize her on medication which means more doctors, specialists and tests and all she wants is me to find her a man who will screw her? Fuck, this is unbelievable.  

I don’t speak to her for a week. I’m back at work in my little bubble pretending everything is okay. It feels good, I convince myself things are fine. Then I get a call that changes everything.  

Ivy, her employee and friend is delicately trying to relay this message to me: Your mom has been watching porn at the office (it’s “open concept”). What? PORN?  Oh my gawd I think. Porn? This isn’t my mom. I ask Ivy just to make sure it is as bad as I think, "Ivy, has my mom ever watched porn before at her office?" Ivy tells me “No Trish, when a screen of porn has popped up on her computer from some website, your mom, she yells for me - Ivy!, Ivy! come and fix my computer and I go and fix it for her."

I can’t be in denial any longer. I call my mom and ask her about it. “Tricia no one saw me”, she says, then she goes on to tell me how she brought a “little outfit” to work with her. “Which outfit is that?” I ask without wanting to hear the answer. “The one your father gave me when we got married.” “Listen mom”, I say sounding like a mother myself, "You cannot watch porn at the office, do you hear me? Do you understand? If you watch porn at the office again you can no longer run your company.” My mother hears me and says “okay, Tricia, I won’t”.  

The next day Ivy calls again. 

I have no choice, that night I force her into retirement and take over managing the company. I begin planning a retirement party.  

Over the next few weeks as I struggled with the constant thoughts about what she could and could not do for herself, she continued to ask me to find her a man to have sex with. I wondered if it would ever end. One afternoon as I contemplated the possibilities, I remembered a story she had told me about the day her mother had died. As my Granny lay in her hospital bed she asked my mother to brush her hair - my mother had refused saying she didn’t need it done. After my Granny died my mother had been plagued with guilt. "Why didn’t I just brush her hair? Who was I to judge what she had needed or didn’t need?" My mother would say to me ravaged by guilt. "It was a simple request which would have made her feel good, I should have done it” she had said to me on many occasions.  

Was finding my mother a man the same kind of request? Was it my place to decide what is good for her or what she needed? It would make her feel good. Was it a simple request like brushing my Granny’s hair? 

I decide I could not judge. If my mom’s request is for me to find her a man that is what I am going to do for her.  

I called Kristina “You’re never going to believe what I need you to help me with...” she laughed “Okay, but we need to make sure the guy is bonded!.”  

 To be continued...Sex Drive part II