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I spilled it after dinner, after Aunt Cheryl was sawing logs in the guest room, and my mother and I sat on the front porch That front porch was seeing some action this su My mother partook of a bowl of Colorado’s finest leaf, while I stuck with an iced coffee

I kept the spill light and disclosed no real substance, ad Leo occasionally, casually A few juicy nuggets easily distracted her, and with only the slightest nudging, I was able to turn her focus away from me and my love life, and on to how her trip had been

Officially she couldn’t tell me whether they had won, but based on the fact that she was home early, and an artfully timed hen I said, "Oh, for fuck’s sake, just tell ether

And as easy as it was to distract her with so about herself), she could be distracted evenshiny and rose petal filled (her love life)

My mother had met no less than three men on her trip First there was Hank, an auto parts sales with his son for the show An early favorite, he and Mo in San Francisco’s Chinatown after the Welco Race cast party His son and Aunt Cheryl had intervened, explaining to each in turn that getting involved with the coht Hank with his hands down the pants of another coreed, and off Hank went into the discard pile

Next up was Pierre, a French expat who’d been the instructor on a South Seas pearl diving expedition After trying to free dive after only tenand zero breath support, my mother had been hauled up out of the water and onto Pierre’s lap, whereupon she was resuscitated by the smitten Frenchman She actually came around several moments before she publicly came around, so as to enjoy a little ht of oceanic skinny dipping, where she urged hi his breath underwater while otherwise occupied

I nearly had to get the scotch to listen to that story

And finally, there was Wayne Tuesday Yep, his actual name

Wayne was a ca Race, and his unit had been assigned to ht on the island of Tahiti, after a limbo contest that my mother won, the two of them sneaked away from the rest of the crew and shared a frozen pineapple daiquiri Was it the pineapple? Was it the limbo? Was it the bendy? (Pretty sure it was the bendy) Who knows, but she was quite taken with Wayne

Now, typically when a reality show contestant gets involved with a s happens The contestant is removed, or the crew member hits the bricks Wayne andromance from everyone until the final location in Roame of hide the salami He was fired, and a feeeks later, my mother and Aunt Cheryl had been eliminated

For the record, this was how hard it was for my mother to keep a secret Did she ever tellRace"? No, but she circu words like eliminated No one, and I er than an hour told her a secret