January 2, 2002
10:06am

I spent New Year's Eve and Day over my mother's house, as usual. Sure, I had my pick of parties to attend, but I never had the desire to go to any of them. As loserly as it might sound to some of you, I actually like spending New Year's with my mom. I can't think of anyone I'd rather bring in the year with.

It has been our little family tradition for as long as I can remember (except for one year when I went to a party and had no fun at all). My mom would get a wine glass of champagne and I a cup of Sprite and we'd stay up to watch Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve. When the ball finally dropped we'd clink our glasses and mumble "Auld Lang Syne." This is the first year I actually knew the words to that song.

Yesterday my mom and I were reminiscing about some of my childhood memories when a certain incident came up. Apparently, I remember this incident a little differently than my mom.

When I was very young, my mom had to wash our clothes at the laundromat because our apartment complex had no washer and dryer. One of the popular toys during this time was Pillow People, which were pillows with the faces of different characters. My Pillow Person was a yellow and white bunny with long ears, a cotton tail, a furry muzzle with big felt teeth, and a pair of half-closed blue eyes that had a strange air of indifference.

I loved that bunny.

I slept with the bunny, talked to the bunny, and carried the bunny around the apartment; and like any beloved child's toy, it was beginning to show the effects of rough and tumble adoration. The bunny became pretty filthy, and my mother began to look down on it with disdain. She was sure my innocent bunny was carrying some sort of disease and soon declared it a biohazard. As a result, it was condemned to a washing.

That is how the bunny ended up in the laundromat with us on that fateful day. I was quite worried about the situation. I may have only been five-years-old, but I could read a laundry tag. The bunny's tag clearly said HAND WASH ONLY. This concern was waved away by my mother (who has a habit of thinking some rules don't apply to her) as she promptly threw the bunny in the washer.

Miraculously, the bunny managed to survive the washer, but its fate was unfortunately sealed in the dryer. As my mother opened the dryer door I beheld a gruesome sight. My precious friend and companion had been blown to bits. All that was left of her was a tired, sagging cloth skin and mounds of fluffy cotton guts. I was devastated, and began to wail in grief. I didn't care when everyone in the laundromat turned to look at us, and my mom's pleas for quiet fell on deaf ears. My friend had been mutilated by the evil dryer.

The horror...the horror...

My mother, on the other hand, seemed to think I was overreacting. She only seemed to remember that I had embarrassed her thoroughly in public. However, there is no better guilt trip than the tear-stained cheeks of a child who's toy you just utterly destroyed. She quickly sought to remedy the situation by purchasing another Pillow People bunny. It wasn't quite the same. My bunny had been yellow with blue eyes, but none of those were in stock. I had to settle for a blue bunny with green eyes. This didn't sit too well with me, but I was satisfied that my mother had at least tried to make ammends (After all, how often do parents actually admit that they're wrong?). I soon grew to love the new bunny as much as I had loved the old one and my childhood trauma was minimized.

The whole thing was pretty hilarious in hindsight. It was very rare for me to ever embarrass and/or terrify my mother in public, so it's a unique memory. I wonder what childhood traumas my kids are going to hold against me when I'm a mother.