Your mother

A joke I made yesterday at the lake party netted not a single laugh. We were all sitting in the sun on the dock when Stephanie, the hostess, said that we needed to take a boat ride before she became too drunk to captain an adventure. "They will pull you over for boating under the influence," she said, sipping a Cosmo. "How would they know? Failure to maintain wave?” I asked, and the crowd was tough. I bring the comedy flop up because learning that boating under the influence is illegal—and not, as I formerly presumed, merely a permitted pastime of the rich—reminded me of Nancy Regan. Here's the exact flow of associations:

BUI à excessive alcohol consumption à Mimi à Nancy Reagan à blowjobs

According to the book Hollywood Babylon—or, more truthfully, according to stories I've heard from people who've actually read the book (I'm not one of them)—young Nancy Reagan had excellent oral sex abilities and a penchant for displaying those abilities during car rides, resulting in a few young Hollywood actors being pulled over by the police, probably for failure to maintain lane, with Nancy as their passenger.

I once was on the verge of telling Mimi this story—I don't know why. Mimi has said that she hopes reincarnation is real so that she can be returned to earth as a stud horse, and during my most recent visit to her house she described in sensual terms how she enjoys the way drinking a martini warms her whole body. In her early, immature drinking years Mimi's drink of choice was a Tom Collins (my favorite, too), but the sugar in Tom Collins (not, according to Mimi, the gin) gave her hangovers that lasted three days. Mimi is not a pure, demure or prude old lady, but she is my grandmother, and I don't know why I ever imagined that I could tell her a story that included the word blowjob. Mimi adores Nancy and Ronald Reagan both, and she had brought one or the other of them up and in so doing had reminded me of Hollywood Babylon, so after she finished telling me whatever little Reagan tale she had, I thought I'd tell her mine and thereby bust, or at least dent, her bubble of adoration. I said, "Mimi, I actually know something pretty shocking about Nancy Reagan." Mimi let a little gasp escape from her bright red mouth and said, "Oh darling, I know what you're going to say." I had been doubting that Mimi would even know what a blowjob was and had prepared myself for her asking "Darling, what's a blowjob?" after and if my lips figured out how to form the word in her presence. But instead of shocking Mimi with the story about Nancy Reagan Mimi was shocking me by evidently already knowing not only what a blowjob was but also that Nancy Reagan was the queen of giving them. "How do you know?!" I asked her, stunned. And she said, "The Reagan campaign never kept it a secret that she was Ronald's second wife." And I guess at that point I lost my courage.

Mimi just helped me pay for my summer semester of school, which without her help I would've had no way of affording, and I am very grateful for what she's done. But I'm also disappointed in Mimi, because I recently heard that she accused my sister Amanda of letting her kids, who are the kindest and cutest and funniest children I've ever known, "run all over" her. And that's just not true. Mimi also believes that her dog always goes outside to pee. And that's just not true either.

I like at times to consider the series of mothers I come from and how I resemble, would like to resemble, or hope to avoid resembling them. I had been calling Graham "my sweet boy" for a few weeks before I recognized that my mom has always called me her "sweet girl." Aron's mom calls him "honey," an endearment I've adopted for Graham. Mimi hasn't told my dad that she loves him in years. I'm glad that Mimi and I are alike in our love of Tom Collins, and I hope one day to be as financially generous to my children (or, FUTURE SHOCK, grandchildren) as she has been to me. But if my dog ever pees in the house I want to know about it.