Are You My Mother?

Has anyone ever read the children's book by P.D. Eastman, Are You My Mother? It's about this little bird who loses his mother and he goes around asking all sorts of animals (and a steam shovel) if they're his mother. I had a similar experience with Amy Jo recently.

One morning, I'm getting ready for work and I realize that Amy Jo isn't up yet. So I go into her room (much like she did the morning of my first snow day) and say, "Um, should you be up now?" She explained that she had an eye doctor appointment and that she was listening to Bob & Sheri and that they had the Jersey Shore people on. I thought little of it, and went on to work. The next night, we were watching our usual Thursday night line-up and as Thirty Rock was ending, the DVR alerted me that Jersey Shore was about to begin recording. And that's when she said it. The most disturbing words you can ever hear your mother utter: "I think I'd like to watch Jersey Shore."

After I put my eyes back in my head, I began the following conversation:

Me: Seriously?
Amy Jo: Well, they were on Bob & Sheri and "The Situation" was kind of funny.
Me: OK. We can watch it, there are several hours worth on the DVR. But I must warn you--you will get dumber. I almost forgot to read.

 I went on to explain the show to her...and somehow, she remained interested. Fast forward to the next night: I'm getting ready to meet up with my old college roommates. I leave her on the couch, watching an episode of Community (BTW, it's hilarious. If you don't watch it, you should!) and go shower, etc. I come out to model one of my ensemble options and that's when I notice that she has moved on to Jersey Shore. By the time I left for the evening, she was half-way through an episode. I expected to hear, "Oh, this is terrible! I can't watch this," but no. I was surprised, but I knew she wouldn't last much longer, and I left. Imagine my shock almost 3 hours later when I receive this text message:

That's right. My mother loves Jersey Shore. Just let that sink in for a moment. Insanity. She loves it so much that she basically told me to stop texting her because she was trying to watch it. Sadly, she was already in bed by the time I got home so I had to wait until Saturday morning to ask her about her experience.

I get up, and she's referencing the show and it's awesome. I'd needed to catch up on some episodes, but I'd been putting it off because I didn't want to do it with her around...assuming that she'd identify it as the trash that it is and get all "mom" on me. While she was working on whatever she was, I flipped on the TV and started watching.

As you'd expect, I was sucked in. Eventually, she finished whatever she was working on and joined me on the couch. And then she's saying things like, "Oh, wait until you see what Snookie does next!"

At some point during our approximate 9 hours of TV watching (we threw in an episode of House, too) I looked at her and said, "Do you realize that you have now watched most of these episodes twice in less than 24 hours?" It was simply astonishing. I should also mention that we didn't move from the couch all day. I didn't shower until 8 PM...it was glorious.

Once we'd cleared the DVR of all the episodes I had stored up, we decided to watch the reunion. At some point, she decided to take the dog out and she said, "You'd better pause it because I don't want to miss Vinny!"

And then, the next morning, she wanted me to save her a seat at church. I jokingly texted back, "No. Never." And that's when she threatened to "kick my ass, Jersey style." I almost peed a little.

It was a strange couple of days to say the least...I'm still processing it. We've been walking around the house doing Jersey Shore impressions and referencing the show right and left. Every time I hear my students mentioning the show, I think, "my mother likes that show...I bet none of their mothers watch that show with them."

 We have both used a Facebook app to pick out Jersey Shore nicknames for ourselves. You can call me, "The Rack".