Shrinking men and picture hooks

BY DAVID COEHRS

My mother has shrunk. If I tried, I think I could fit her into my wife's costume jewelry box if I didn't close the lid. She used to be a shminch over five feet tall, and if I sassed her she would grab a wooden paddle and whap me into the next month.

But as she has aged her body has settled like the foundation of a grand old house, so that now you could hang her from a key chain. When I see her I always remember the formidable woman who towered over me when I was a child, telling me that if I spent as much time eating the beets as I did whining about having to eat them they'd be eaten already. Except, now when I see her she reminds me of that Munchkin who told Dorothy to follow the yellow brick road.

Here I am, all of 5 feet, 6 inches (5-8 1/2 after I let the boys play Stretch The Evil Stepdad on the Rack), and yet, when I talk to her I can look completely over her head and see goings-on behind her, such as my beloved rifling through the inside pockets of my coat looking for money I put there specifically to hide from her. You don't have that advantage with a tall person; you more or less have to keep your attention trained on their face as they tell you how work stinks, and how if their mother-in-law says, "When are you going to get a real job?" once more they are going to have plastic surgery, re-name themselves Dick Slick and run off to Reno.

The one thing I won't do is try to take advantage of my mother's shrinkage. Like, when we disagree about something, I won't pick her up and hang her from a picture hook until she sees it my way. And don't act supercilious and wonder how someone could even think of hanging up their mother - something you, of course, would NEVER consider. Believe me, when there's enough maternal nagging and enough tequila shots flowing in the same general vicinity, stuff can happen.

Still, I wouldn't do that because she's always been there for me. It was she who tried to warn me away from that Becky girl down the street, who everybody knew had been bad news since the word "go." She had preferred I go for Mr. and Mrs. Nagel's daughter, Susan, from church, who helped in the Young Christians group and had never - like someone else she knew -snuck Mad Dog and cigarettes into the auditorium during the high school production of "My Fair Lady."

Since I'm already short, I can only imagine how I'll be at my mother's age. A lot of elderly men shrink, some of them right before your eyes. The reason so many wear their pants up to their chins is because they'll be standing there, minding their Ps and Qs, when they'll suddenly be hit by a grand mal man-shrink and their pants will fall down. So they have to belt them up high to keep them on until they can get home and try to explain their new look to the missus.

I don't imagine our boys will give me much guff about shrinking. I plan to be one of those tiny old men who thinks he can still give what-for, hitching up my pants every ten seconds and grumbling, "You're a tough guy, eh? Why, I oughta -" And if that doesn't work I'll chase them away with a big stick from my yard, like Old Man Wannamaker did to us before his hips got all cricky.

Besides which, moms can still be pretty formidable, even after they shrink. Despite her height, my mother could spin around with the nearest available weapon and knock your brains out for misbehaving from any location in the house, and she'd never break a sweat in the process.

The boys have really grown, so I'm going to ask her to teach me that. Between that and "Why, I oughta -" I should be well-prepared. But remind me to take down all the picture hooks.