In the early years of my memory, my mother was very well put together. After six kids she was still thin and petite. She usually had auburn hair (or blonde sometimes-only her hairdresser knew for sure!), which was well styled for the time.

With six kids, my mom did whatever she could to get value (or quantity) out of a dollar. She collected S&H Green Stamps. For you younguns, you received them proportional to the dollar amount of groceries you bought at participating stores. When you collected enough, you stuck them in books and “spent” them in a store that had all sorts of household items.

My mother had all the kids licking Green Stamps and sticking them in books until none of us had any more spit left in our bodies.

Around mid-day, my mom got herself all dolled up, this story happened in a time when you dressed relatively nicely to go to the store. She then collected all the precious lucre (the stamp books), 5 of the kids (ages 16, 12, 10, 7, & 5), and loaded us up in her Fiat. Now, I know they have some larger Fiats, but my mother, in all her infinite wisdom, bought a very tiny car (smaller than a VW bug) to transport her mass of children. We couldn’t have buckled the seatbelts if we wanted. I’m not sure that car had them anyway.

So, my perfectly dressed mom, with dreams of copper-clad pots and pans, drove her clown car across town to the S&H Green Stamp Store. After my excited mom parked, we unloaded our stream of passengers from the car, and followed mom like a row of ducklings across the parking lot to the door of the store. This was long before the internet and easily looking up store hours. This day they only opened for half a day, and mom didn’t know it.

The trouble happened as we approached the door, the clerk apparently panicked to see my stylish mom with her very well-behaved brood (mom would have killed us otherwise), and she locked the door on my mother! Now, I must say that the kids knew better than to do this, but how would a non-family member know? I would swear, in that few seconds, the sky grew dark, and the birds stopped chirping as mom threw her precious Green Stamp Books at the door and let loose a string of expletives that would make a sailor blush…or laugh (I’m not sure).

My mother rarely cussed, but when she did, she always said the same three words- always together- G*d, damn, shit! If we heard those words, we knew to go hide! Do NOT be seen by mom if she has growled these words. But, there we were in plain sight scrambling for cover.

The manager saw the nicely dressed lady with the horde of kids (who didn’t dare utter a word), screaming profanities on his sidewalk and bravely came to let my mother in as he apologized profusely. We hesitantly emerged from our hiding places as the birds started singing and the sun shone again and all was right with the world. We entered the store to get mom’s pots and pans and she didn’t drive her car through the storefront. (That last part would have been in the Hollywood script, but this is real life).