“Come here, Maxxy!” That’s my mom…well, that’s my Bré. She’s never let me call her Mom. She’s always told me to call her Bré (pronounced as Brae). The best way to describe Bré is as a dog-lovin’, free-spirited woman who has no care in the world except for her own. She wears scrubs on a daily basis even though she’s not a nurse, and cant get enough of those giant crazy looking, glitter-filled hair scrunchies.

Ever since I can remember, Bré has ALWAYS been obsessed with our dog Max. Everytime I get in trouble she says, “I raised the dog better than I raised you!” Guess how that makes me feel. Like an extra object in the house only used to keep in more body heat during cold winters.

Well, aside from the fact that the dog is treated better than me, Bré and I have an interesting mother daughter relationship. Ironically, my birthday always falls on the same exact day as Max’s. On my seventh birthday party, Bré got my cake and Max’s cake mixed up. After shoving huge slices of cake down our throats, my friends and I all threw up Beggin’ Bits and strawberry flavored Beef icing. Ugh. We all had to have been really hungry ’cause there’s no way that I can see myself eating that crap now.

I always pictured Bré as becoming one of those strange, creepy old ladies with a gazillion dogs. The type of old lady that you only see walk out the door when a weed sprouts up from beneath. The lady who lives on a dead end street atop of the big, scary hill. Yep, that’s her…that’s Bré.


People always ask me why Bré is soo crazy. I always tell ‘em, “I don’t know. Maybe she got head trauma.” But honestly, I’m no different than them ‘cause I ask the same question. Why is she so crazy? On Halloween one year, she dressed up as a dog. And I’m not just talking about the usual dogs ears with a tail to tie around your waist, I’m talking about a full-blown costume. The actual dog suit with the holes for you to see out of and the little fan in the inside so that you don’t overheat yourself. I mean, she even walked…well crawled on all fours alongside Max.

I remember one time my friends and I walked past a garbage dump and were overcome by the putrid stench of old, old garbage. But that smell is nothing compared to my house. Yeah, it looks clean…while your holding your nose, that is. But until you start breathing again, it’s the type of smell that makes you wish you never had a nose. It stinks so bad that the Febreeze stuff wont even work. Can it possibly get worse than that?

People always wonder why they’re not allowed in my house. The lie that I use the most is, “Oh, well, um, we have a roach infestation. The exterminators said that it’s not good to breathe in ’cause it’s highly toxic and can kill you in one minute!” (You always gotta stress the one minute part. That adds more drama.). Sometimes I tell ’em that Bré has a highly infectious disease that’s extremely contagious. That her hair’s falling out and that it’s a huge rash eating away at her flesh. You can catch the disease even by looking at her! One of my favorites is, “You can’t come over ’cause my house burned down…I know, it’s horrific. But we’ll make it through. No need to worry.” But these lies never work once they see perfectly healthy Bré drive up in her silver Benz, and walk into our perfectly fine, un-burnt house. I could just tell them that I’m much too embarrassed to let them in because my house smells like wet dog, but that makes it way too easy.

As I sit at my kitchen table eating a Tootsie Roll Pop, that commercial comes to mind. The one where the little boy asks the owl how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll Pop. The owl says, “Well let’s find out.” He licks it twice then, CRUNCH, he bites into it. After that the narrator says, “How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll Pop? The world may never know.” When people ask me about Bré, I try to come up with these elaborate answers, but I guess the best way to put out the burning questions in their brains would be to say, “The world may never know.”