I remember the first time I embarrassed my Mother in public. I guess it would be more accurate to say one of my earliest memories is embarrassing my Mother in public. We were at The San Diego Zoo and there was a man on crutches standing by us who had an amputated leg. He had a stump and I remember being fascinated by him. I walked over and stood right underneath his stump, looked up and asked him what happened to his leg.

My next recollection of this inquiry was my Mother rushing over and yanking me by the arm from underneath his stump. The man never answered me and I remember feeling confused about what I had done wrong. I am sure it was explained to me, but my curiosity clearly was more demanding of my attention than the lecture I was given because I can remember always wondering what had happened to the man’s leg.

Paybacks are sometimes a long time coming but I got mine when I decided to take Mom to one of her favorite restaurants for dinner, Applebees. We walked in and were seated at a booth that was backed up against a bigger one with a party of eight already seated. The waitress took our drink orders and we settled in to looking around and me reminding Mom of the last time she had been to the restaurant.

Our drinks arrived and Mom continued to rubber neck around the restaurant taking in all the people seated at their tables. I had just thanked the waitress when Mom quickly turned to me and said a bit too loudly “Oh my did you see that guy sitting back there? He is huge!” I was a bit confused what she was talking about and said “What?” Mom answered “You know” and proceeded to puff out her cheeks and hold her arms out from her sides to make her point, then to my horror turned to point towards him and said “Look how fat he is!”

To say I was stunned was an understatement but I had little time to dwell on it as I was trying to get her attention back on to me before the poor man saw her pointing at him. Thankfully he was not aware of her focus on him. However, almost every person at the table of eight behind us stopped eating and looked in our direction.

At this point, short of rushing over and explaining to the party of eight that my Mother has dementia and therefore a broken social filter, there was nothing to be done but change the subject; divert, divert, divert! My comfort was knowing the gentleman she found so fascinating never noticed her interest.

After dinner, as we were walking to the car Mom said “I feel a little light-headed did I have a drink?” I answered “Yes you did but I asked the waitress to have them go light on the Rum. By the looks of it however I think she may have forgotten to relay that onto the bartender.” Mom smiled and said “Good for her. I guess that means I will come back then!”……and maybe not! At least not anytime soon!