Diving Granny Does It Again

All of my friends wish my mama was their mama. In fact, they all want to be exactly like my mama when they're her age; an age no one truly knows or could guess. Their adoration blossomed one summer afternoon while watching my mother nimbly dive into the Country Club pool without care of the cluster of children she cut in front of or her coiffure. Coinage of the term "diving granny" accompanied covetous admiration for her c'est la vie.

Because my mother can squeeze a nickel so hard it turns to dust, even at her unspecified age she still pumps her own gas. Yesterday, while ruefully standing next to the tanks listening to the glunk, glunk, glunk of high-priced unleaded fuel pouring into her car, she said, to a man wearing a blue button-up shirt with a white oval reading BERT in red lettering, "My car needs to be washed."

Bert acknowledged her and her dusty car with a silent nod.

"How much is a car wash," Mama asked Bert in the blue shirt.

"I don't know," he shrugged, as if he couldn't care less. Then he remembered his manners and offered, "Maybe about four dollars."

The pump clicked and the glunking ceased and my mother returned the nozzle to the carriage. "Meet me over at the car wash," she told Bert, "but first go inside and check the price."

Bert stared at my mother. My mother stared at Bert. No one went anywhere. The bell on the gas station door jingled as a man exited.

"Ma'am," Bert said to Mama, noticeably irritated, "why don't you ask him how much the car wash is. He works here."

My friends all want to be my mama when they grow up, because it's better to be interesting than to be perfect.