Kat's Rambling Mind

If there was one thing our father Richard loved, it was aggravating his mother-in-law, Lila Mae. First of all, she was the definition of gullible, and secondly, she was a good sport.

Once, around 1974, Mamaw Lila was visiting and on Sunday, we all piled into the chocolate brown Ford LTD and headed to Sears in Gainesville, GA. There were six of us, and we were on a quest for school shoes or church clothes or something of that nature.

When we got there, our mother, Janice, took my younger sister Jennifer with her, and I stayed with Daddy, my brother Russ, and Lila Mae, looking at watches or chain saws or something. Like most department stores in the 1970s, Sears had mirrored columns everywhere.

Mamaw was off to herself, and I noticed Pops looking intently into the mirror on one of said columns. Because curiosity killed the Kat, I made a beeline to him to see what he was so fascinated with. As I got closer, he looked up and asked me, “Hey Kathy, you wanna see the monkey?”

Well, of course I did! A monkey, right there at Sears? They really did have everything! I started looking about wildly, and Pops said, “Okay, if you want to see the monkey, you have to be careful not to scare it….look for it in this mirror”.

So there I stood, looking in the mirror, while Dad asked earnestly, “Do you see it?”, to which I replied, “No! I don’t see it!”. He asked again, and I said no. He then pointed to my reflection and said, “See the monkey now?”, and I got the joke. I laughed sheepishly and said, “Daaaaaddy!”, as I was used to his pranks. He then got a devilish twinkle in his eye, and called out to Mamaw, “Lila Mae! You wanna see the monkey?!”

Well, she was more excited than I’d been. She came bustling over and looked in the mirror per his instructions. He then repeated the same thing he’d told me…..except Lila Mae was a little slower on the uptake. Not only did she not see the monkey, but after several attempts she couldn’t figure out what was so doggoned funny for me, Russ, and Daddy. Dad was practically doubled over at this point, and she was more than annoyed. Finally, he pointed to her reflection one last time and asked if she saw the monkey yet, and it dawned on her.

In a voice loud enough for half the store to hear, she exclaimed, “AH S**T, RICHARD!”, at which point Mom came wheeling around the corner to see what in the world was going on. Dad was nearly in tears, Lila Mae was guffawing, and my nine-year-old self was in a puddle of laughter on the floor, right next to my brother, who was holding his sides, laughing.

And from that day forward, we’d occasionally look at Mamaw and ask, “Lila Mae! Wanna see the monkey?”. She’d reward us by sticking her tongue out at us…and then she’d grin. She reminded all of us often of the value of laughing at your own fool self. What a sport she was, that Lila Mae!