Heather Christena Schmidt

Before Pookie started homeschooling, we had her in a local Catholic school. One of the requirements of families was mandatory volunteer time – you had to do 18 hours a year, or something like that. Taking tickets at the school carnival, checking kids in tardy, lunch duty, and other assorted chum work were what everyone seemed to be doing when we started there, and if you didn’t do your 18 hours a year, you were charged a whopping $150 an hour. Naturally I obliged.

I wasn’t going to be doing any of those sucking eggs tasks, though – this B(itch) volunteered in the classroom.

Usually the teacher had me take a part of the class to the library to be read to. The kids would gather around me, I would select a few age-appropriate books, and then the battle would begin for me to get the story finished with all of them (1) paying attention, and (2) alive. I miss those days. There’s something cathartic about reading a children’s book, and fielding questions like “why are frogs green?” and “where did that baby in the mommy’s tummy come from?” It gave me an opportunity to wax philosophical with Kindergarteners – always a delight, in my book.

Let’s try and recreate that now, faithful blog followers – for I have a doozy of a story to tell. Gather round. Get your fingers out of your nostrils, and your wedgies out of your ass cracks. It’s time for Mama B(itch) to teach you about The Hillbilly Who Cried Wolf.

There once was an hillbilly named Trailer Trash Mom. She was a good little girl about 3% of the time, and the remaining parts of her life she was evil. When I say evil, I mean she lied a lot. She used people. She was a horrible mother and grandmother. And she was a gossip.

But for some reason, Trailer Trash Mom still had a large group of family and friends around her that supported her no matter what. They gave her money because she had no job. They gave her a place to stay when she had no man to support her. They paid the bill for her false teeth when all of her real ones fell out – they were just that devoted to Trailer Trash Mom.

One day, many years ago, Trailer Trash Mom cried wolf. She was just hanging out with her legs up and spread on a table in a casino lounge. A man caught her eye (or lady parts … only they know), and it was love at first sight (hump). She cried to her family and friends “Wolf! Wolf! A wolf has fallen in love with me, and he is a drummer, and he is going to take me on tour with Madonna!!” Her friends and family flocked to her side. They gave her money for clothes. They got her a new hairstyle and makeup kit – she was going to be going on the road with the new love of her life, and with Madonna!

In the end, the truth came out. Trailer Trash Mom was not going on tour with Madonna. The  whole thing was a story to cover for the fact that the drummer from that night in the casino lounge was married.

There was no wolf.

Some time went by, and people forgot about the incident. Trailer Trash Mom found a new boyfriend and after only a few months she moved in with him. They were happy, although she would often complain of money problems, casino dramas, and other assorted encounters with the law. One day she showed up at her parents’ apartment bruised and bloodied. “Wolf! Wolf!” Trailer Trash Mom cried. “I caught him cheating on me with another woman and he beat me to pieces!!” Her friends and family flocked to her side again. They gave her money to stay somewhere else until she found a new home. They paid for movers to go in and get her things out of the house, while her boyfriend was gone. They called the police and filed reports.

And then the truth came out. Trailer Trash Mom had caught him cheating, but tried to get in on it. Yes, that’s right – she tried for a threesome (I shudder at the thought). The bruised and bloodied state she appeared in when arriving at her parents’ apartment was from getting into a bar fight with someone who had looked at someone new she was trying to put the moves on.

There was no wolf.

Even more time went by and somehow Trailer Trash Mom landed herself a husband. He was no catch, though – a hillbilly living in New Mexico, the man lived off of hot dogs, cigarettes, and a daily case of Coors. Trailer Trash Mom traveled between New Mexico and her parents’ home in California, but it was beginning to become unreasonable financially, since Trailer Trash Mom had no income.

One day while in California she got off the phone and cried: “Wolf! Wolf!! My hillbilly husband has cancer!” Her friends and family flocked to her again, only this time they asked a few questions. A few phone calls later, his “cancer” was really just an infection that a five day course of antibiotics would clear up. But a few weeks later, Trailer Trash Mom got off the phone again and cried “Wolf! Wolf!! My hillbilly husband has melanoma!!” Her friends and family flocked to her yet again, asking even more questions. A few phone calls later, his “melanoma” was all a mistake. It was a crumb just stuck to his face.

There was no wolf. There was no wolf. Her family and friends started to believe there never would be a wolf.

A few months went by this time and one day Trailer Trash Mom got off the phone, yet again screaming “Wolf!!!!!! My hillbilly husband has pneumonia!” But this time the friends and family didn’t really flock; they listened to her, but didn’t really know what they could do. It was Walking Pneumonia, and by the time she found out he was supposedly on antibiotics and feeling better. So a few more days went by and Trailer Trash Mom got off the phone, crying one more time “Wolf!!! Wolf!!! Wolf!!!!! My hillbilly husband has had a heart attack! He’s being airlifted to a hospital in Texas because there are none in the town in which he lives!! Oh the peril! WOLF!!”

But this time she cried and someone checked the Internet. There was a hospital in the town in which he lived. Who knew if there really was a wolf? There never had been before.

So she cried it again – “Wolf!! Wolf!!!” WOLF!!!” to the one person (no it was not me) that hadn’t turned their back on Trailer Trash Mom. A few hours later, a plane ticket was purchased. A car was rented. Arrangements had been made for Trailer Trash Mom to return to her hillbilly husband, on someone else’s dime.

No one but that one person believed Trailer Trash Mom because she had cried wolf so many times before. Did her hillbilly husband really have a heart attack? No one really knows. No one will probably ever know if the wolf ever existed.

No one, but Trailer Trash Mom.