R.I.P.

"It's the oddest thing," thought mom. Just by chance, as she was flipping through today's newspaper back to front, mom landed on the obituary page.

Normally, mom doesn't even glance at the obits, unlike certain senior citizens who daily peruse obituaries with the same interest she normally reserves for malicious gossip and salacious celebrity rumors.

But for some weird reason, mom happened to chance upon the death notice of a former co-worker, a woman she didn't really know and hadn't seen in more than nine months.

It looks like the woman, who used to sit in front of her and munched on an apple every day, succumbed to cancer.

"Kinda puts things in perspective, doesn't it?" mom's co-workers commiserated. Mom dutifully nodded, even though she has no clue what the phrase actually means. (It makes for a good conversation filler, though, especially during awkward moments, so mom uses it from time and time, and people around her nod solemnly.)

Like most savants with a lot of time on their hands, mom frequently ponders on the mysteries of life and death.

How does a soul enter the body? Did Patrick Swayze's character really enter Whoopi Goldberg's body to kiss Demi Moore? Do ghosts float around like they do on Pac-Man? Can mom's ancestors see her while she's on the throne? What about when she's making love? Did her cherished childhood pet be reborn as one of her children? And, come on, do they really have Philadelphia cream cheese in heaven?

Her imagination being what it is - combined with an overdose of Lifetime TV - mom tends to be a little jumpy around things that go bump in the night: The ice-maker in the kitchen sounds like a dying man's gurgle; the wind against the back door signals a possible intruder; she's afraid to look out a dark window for fear of seeing Cathy's pale face as did Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights; and the shrill ring of a telephone causes her heart to momentarily leap out of its chamber when she's watching a thriller on television well past midnight.

Given her somewhat delicate frame of mind, it should come as no surprise that mom feels that Halloween should be banned. "I can't believe they celebrate ghosts, goblins, witches, spirits, aliens, vampires, phantoms ... Freddy Krueger, and think we're backward for worshipping cows," she thought, when she first landed here.

Before she had children, mom would turn off the lights, draw the blinds and pretend nobody was home on Halloween nights. These days, she can be found traipsing around the neighborhood with her children, instructing them to pick more of the chocolate she likes and less of the jawbreaking Tootsie Rolls they invariably collect.

I should also mention that the woman is afraid, very afraid of shower curtains - especially in lonely hotel bathrooms.

Is she pyscho, or what?