I don't want to do this, my mom whined from the front seat.
""Did you say something?""
""I'm nervous. What if people don't like them?""
""How did I get here? What time is it?"" I looked at my watch. It was 7 a.m. and I was on my way to Temple Israel in the suburbs of Detroit, where my mom grew up, on a Sunday morning.
My mom had flown in from Tennessee for the synagogue's art fair. She was showing framed fabric collages and tallitot - Jewish prayer shawls - that she designed and created using an array of fabrics and textures.
Although she'd been doing this for years for family, this was her first time going public, and she was terrified.
""They're all going to say, 'What is she even doing here? She's not an artist.'""
""I remember going to bed at two and now I'm driving. What the hell? Did you drug me or something?""
""I know what I'm going to do! I'm going to tell them that you made them. You're young and cute and they'll react much better to you.""
""Mom, that's ridiculous.""
It was ridiculous. Whatever artistic talent she has she did not courteously pass along to me. I can hardly match my clothes in the morning, and am pretty sure that mauve is a fungus.
Lucky for me, though, she forgot all about her brilliant idea once my grandma and my aunt Julie arrived to help us set up. The vast majority of my aunt's anecdotes start out with, ""So I was on the toilet when..."" and my grandma is probably the only 80-year-old woman who uses Youtube to find videos of birds dancing to Ray Charles.
I decided to wake up with a chai latte from a cart set up in the lobby from a man who looked to be in his late 50s.
""Why hello there! We have biscuits this morning for only 50 cents apiece.""
""No thanks, just the chai for me.""
""Oh,"" he said looking me up and down disappointedly. ""Are you on like a diet or something?""
Before I had a chance to answer, a woman tapped me on the shoulder and handed me a bar of soap.
""Special for you, my dear,"" she said.
When I returned with my latte in one hand and soap in the other I grimaced at my mom and said, ""Apparently I'm fat and smelly,"" I replied.
""My Diet Coke tastes like gum,"" my aunt Julie chimed in.
""What?""
""It's like Mom spit out her gum in here or something,"" she said.
""Mom?"" aunt Julie yelled across the room. ""Did you spit out your gum in the Diet Coke?""
""Yeah. Sorry, I forgot,"" my grandma yelled back.
About 30 minutes later, we finished setting up and the show opened to the public. To my relief, people loved my mom's stuff, and she managed to sell over $1,000 worth of merchandise.
The thing that impressed me the most, though, was she was never ready to sacrifice her integrity for the sake of a sale. A few people came by and asked if she would custom make a tallit with fabric they picked out. She agreed to custom make them along with a theme of their choice, but she refused to let them pick out the fabric. She wouldn't be able to design them as effectively, she said, if she were restricted in the fabrics she could use.
At that moment I wished I had her courage not to sell out. If someone offered me hundreds of dollars to forge a piece reflecting on, say, reflections of a gay Episcopalian man, I can't say I wouldn't accept.
A couple of hours later, after my mom sold a few pieces and I reluctantly accepted three more gratuitous bars of soap, an older woman walked by with her husband.
""This looks like wallpaper,"" she huffed.
I looked at my mom nervously. This was what she was afraid of all morning. But to my relief, she started laughing.
""Did you hear that? Wallpaper. Ha!""
That's when I finally understood what it was about, this Detroit community that allowed so many people to go from completely self-conscious to 100-percent confident in a matter of hours. From bathroom stories, dancing birds, soiled beverages, diets and wallpaper, everyone is just so crazy that you can feel normal doing things you wouldn't dare to do elsewhere.
I returned to Madison Sunday evening knowing a little bit more about my mother, and a little bit more of where I came from.
For the last two years I've been exaggerating my life for your entertainment, but next week, for my last column, I'm going to tell the truth... about everything. If you have any questions about me or anything I've written, no matter how personal or offensive they may be, that you'd like answered in my final column, e-mail me at wiatrak@wisc.edu.
