The Ugly Turquoise Bag and the Wedding Candle

Phyllis loves gift bags and tissue paper. It's kind of an unhealthy obsession, really; at the end of every gift-giving celebration, you can see her sitting off by herself, lovingly creasing and smoothing her new treasure trove.

I don't know why she keeps it all, though, because for family functions we always end up piling all our gifts into the Ugly Turquoise Bag. This gift bag has been a part of our family for about ten years now - somebody bought it and Mom decided it was worth saving for future generations. It's an eye-searingly gaudy shade of teal and its upper corner is covered in approximately sixteen layers of adhesive gift tags. I finally covered them all with a small silver bow. Across the front of the bag is scrawled "The Ugly Turquoise Bag: A Family Tradition." It is a hideously wonderful piece of memorabilia. I can't possibly convey how festive it is to have this treat of a gift bag plopped in front of you on your birthday, with all your presents stacked inside and one elderly piece of torn tissue paper laying half-heartedly on top. Phyl keeps the bag stored in the living room cabinet; it is probably the one possession she never loses track of. I fully expect to inherit the damn thing one day, and I will put Mom and Dad's ashes in it and keep it on the mantelpiece. Anyway, my birthday was this week, and it was my turn to be feted with the Bag.

After the grand gift opening (and honestly, my parents give awesome presents and are very generous and thoughtful people), it was time for cake and Phyl's other birthday tradition: The Wedding Candle. Mom never saw the point of buying "expensive" birthday candles for cakes. One year, someone in the family decided it was necessary to have a little bit of pyromania on their birthday and went on a treasure hunt. The only candle they could find was a large white taper, not burned since it was lit at Mom and Dad's wedding reception in the 1983. The Wedding Candle was elegantly jammed into the birthday cake, and thus began another long and noble tradition. When the birthday cake is an ice cream cake, we have to buttress The Wedding Candle with toothpicks since we can't jam it into the cake for support. Phyllis always has an angel food cake for her birthday, an airy cake lacking the mass to support The Wedding Candle, and so we are forced to simply set it down in the hollow made by the bundt pan, where it rests at an interesting angle. It looks like the only survivor from a shipwreck, adrift in a sugary life raft.

Anyway, I blew out The Wedding Candle and had a wonderful birthday. After the festivities were completed, Mom carefully folded The Ugly Turquoise Bag and its accompanying tissue paper and returned them to the cabinet, there to wait until the next birthday. My brother's fiancee's birthday will be coming up next. I wonder if she really knows what she's getting into, marrying into this family. And I wonder if her wedding cake needs a candle on top.

Meet Phyllis

I want to make one thing perfectly clear: My mother is the best woman in the entire world. She is smart and beautiful and funny and a wonderful wife and mom.

I want to make something else very clear: My mother is one of the strangest people I have ever met.

One day, I took it upon myself to clean out the hall closet in Mom's house. Amidst the ancient vacuum bags and old cassette tapes, I found a piece of brown wrapping paper, probably six inches by four. I started to throw it into the trash bag, and Mom swooped down on me, screaming like a banshee, "DON'T THROW THAT AWAY! I CAN USE IT!" I made the mistake of asking what, exactly, she could use a Kleenex-sized scrap of wrapping paper for, and she began listing off small things she could wrap with it, such as jewelry or a cookie. I helped out by supplying other small gift items: a toenail, an even smaller piece of brown wrapping paper, a pencil eraser, air molecules, maybe even a green bean. Althoug irritated by my lack of appreciation for the manifold uses of this tiny piece of paper, Mom began to laugh until she teared up, then had to sprint up the stairs to the bathroom before she wet her pants.

I love my mom. Someday I will splurge and buy her a whole roll of brown wrapping paper.