Pickles and Penis Lollipops

The other day Tina was talking about pickling and how her mom makes the "best pickles" ever!

Maybe because it was early and my caffeine had not yet hit me...

Maybe because I am a die hard New Yorker with ZERO filters at times...

Maybe because I was raised partially by my mother...

I blurted out, "At least your mom makes pickles. My mom made penis lollipops."

What? It was funny. Seriously.

There was silence for a second and then Anna's mom (who works with me) snorted and started cracking up. Tina followed.

I felt bad for a minute because I make a lot of jokes about the mom my mom used to be, even though she is now as close to normal as I had ever wished for as a little kid.

Thankfully, she knows that I poke fun at some of the more outlandish nonsense she pulled back in the day. She really was like a little kid who I constantly had to encourage to act her age. I think I finally have her acting a cross between 26 and 80. It's a coin toss most days.

That being said, my mom (ever the entrepreneur) used to make and sell adult chocolate in our kitchen. It was the year I was 8.

At any given time I would walk in the door from school and the smell of melting chocolate would hit me like a brick in the face.

I would open the refrigerator and be met with pink chocolate boobs with red chocolate nipples, penis lollipops of all shades, and the most disturbing of all...

A chocolate Easter bunny with a giant penis!

(I am fairly certain that this might be why that big eared rodent has always freaked me right the fuck out.)

For some reason, my mom thought it would be an excellent idea to not only keep her chocolate creations in the family refrigerator instead of a separate one, but she also thought my (very Republican) Grandpa would absolutely LOVE a chocolate bunny with a penis.

*scratches head*

Once I made the statement to Tina, I was reminded of a few days prior when I walked into Hershey in Chicago and had that same nauseated feeling I did as a child...I just didn't make the connection.

It dawned on me as I sat there.

I have never really liked milk chocolate.

I have never liked the visual of penises.

I do not even want to discuss that fucking bunny!

As an adult I started to ponder why MY mother, of all mothers, would decide to make sexual chocolate. My mother hates sex, uses it as a weapon, and I am fairly certain she has never had an orgasm and at this point likely never will.

*sigh*

Did she realize that she was going to screw up 3 very important things for me?

I have dated men who have wanted to use chocolate syrup to make body sundaes and I can tell you, 'that dog don't hunt'!

I sat there sad for a minute.

It had been a funny statement, but the depth of it is entirely fucked up.

Now that I have let the image seep back into my consciousness, I can't get it back under the rug.

Unbeknownst to my mom at the time, I saw my first penis when I was 7. It freaked me out. So much so that the smell of it is still crystal clear in my head. The fact that she had these penises in the refrigerator damn near brought me to tears all the time.

Now that my mom and I are close, we joke about the lollipops and I don't think I could ever tell her how much she fucked me up. Honestly, in the grand scheme of things, the lollipops were nothing!

More than for me, I started to feel sorry for my mom.

At least I know what's wrong.

She tried so many things for so long and will likely die a prisoner of her own fear and failure. She just wanted to be good at ONE thing. Now she doesn't care. And in not caring, she somehow became a better person and a more "normal" mom.

I called her to ask her if the Penis Bunnies really existed or had I dreamed them...

She started cracking up and went into great detail about the many molds and how much fun the candy was to make. She sounded like a little kid.

An hour later I received a call from her. She had gone online and found some molds. She hasn't found the Penis Bunny mold yet, but when she does, she will send me one.

I choked on my sip of wine, shooting some out my nose and piercing my sinuses...

"Gee, Mom. Thanks! I can't wait!"

I shivered as I hung up the phone and then shook my head with a small smile.

Some days are just like that.