First, a little backstory: our family has held a paper route monopoly in our subdivision for the past twelve years. Only I, the eldest, somehow escaped the monopoly's iron grasp. The last three unlucky bastards had to lug around a twenty pound bag of papers every day after school and get up with the sun to do the same on the weekends all for what amounted to, like $50 a month. My parents helped frequently, though, bundling up in long underwear and heavy coats to drive them at 5 AM on Christmas morning. (Confidential to my future children: I will never, ever do this for you. Now be quiet so mommy can watch her stories.)

So the last member of the Parma Paper Route Dynasty is our lil' bro Jake, who is less than a year away from ending the family's reign of, um, paper. Last week, due to some miscommunication between he and our mother regarding who would do the route after school, mom arrived home to find papers in the driveway, no Jake, and the hour approaching The Time When Old People Start Calling To Ask Where Their Paper Is. Mom was in a hurry to get the papers delivered, and hopped into the Jeep Grand Cherokee to get the job done. About halfway through, she reached a house where the newspaper box was placed just a little too far away from the road, and she couldn't reach it from the window. So, she opened the door and leaned waaaay out to get to it, and that's when her foot slipped off the brake, she fell halfway out of the car, and the Jeep started driving away solo. Rather than be dragged along with it, she wisely fell the rest of the way out, then realized in horror that the car was still heading at a pretty steady clip down the street. She then leapt (yes, LEAPT) up, ignoring her bloodied knee, and ran 50 FEET to catch up with the runaway. When she caught up with it, she realized she wouldn't be able to jump inside, so running alongside of it, she pushed on the brake pedal with her hand, thus saving the car, the fire hydrant it was headed towards, and any potential small children or animals that might have run out at the last minute.

Our mom is Bruce Willis. She is Indiana Jones. She is, uh. . . the Tomb Raider? There aren't as many women action heros to choose from. Oh, I know--she's Sydney Bristow!. Need a runaway vehicle chased down and stopped? Don't call any of them, they're fake! (Yes, I mean Bruce Willis too.) Call my mom!

Her thoughts on her little adventure? "I ruined my best pair of jeans." And then, as she talked about how it must have looked had anyone been watching the thing go down, she started laughing harder than I've heard her laugh in a long time. Hee hee!! She triumphantly laughs in the face of death and catastrophe!

That's our mom, folks. She makes me proud.

--M