Large Underwear and Sponges

My mother’s unusual way of showing affection

My mother has always had a quirky way of showing affection. She wasn’t very huggy growing up and the words “I love you” seldom, if ever, left her lips. Sometimes I’ll say it to her now, just to make her squirm.

Instead of using the typical affirmations we’re familiar with in 2024, like “Wow, good job!” or “I’m so proud of you!” or “You didn’t eat shit this time!” — she showed her affection by sending eclectic care packages when we were out from under her roof throughout various stages of life, starting at age nine.

I started sleep-away camp after third grade during the PCP era (pre-cell-phone), back when parents sent letters via carrier pigeons and care packages with a horse and buggy.

While most of the kids at camp gleefully opened packages full of cute shampoo bottles, flavored lip balms, colorful hair ribbons, loofah sponges, heavenly-scented hand lotions, colorful, frilly socks, and photos from home — I got a more unique assortment of goods.

I remember getting that care package for the first time. I was ecstatic, for I assumed the contents would closely mirror that of my cabin mates. I tore open the brown packaging like a rabid ferret and couldn’t wait for my scented lotions, flavored lip balms and colorful hair scrunchies.

Instead, I saw:

• Scotch tape! — Okay… maybe for taping sticks together to fashion an old-timey weapon to fend off those feral raccoons. That could be handy, I suppose. Now to find those lip balms…

• Sponges — Huh. Not the kind for a bath. She must have thought she sent me to restaurant training instead of camp. Ah well, everyone can always use extra dish sponges. Especially nine-year olds at sleepaway camp.

• Notepads from hotels — Could be useful lest I need to scribble cryptic SOS notes. You never know who’s lurking in the dense woods of the Adirondacks.

• A padlock — Must be to perform a Copperfield-esque magic trick on demand! Abracadabra — humiliation disappear! Darn.

• Maxi pads — Wellllll before I got my period. Always good to be prepared and they could moonlight as backup bandaids or blindfolds if the occasion ever arose. Shockingly, no such occasion came.

• Shoe laces — Just what I needed to string up the raccoons I murdered with the stick weapons I fashioned out of the Scotch tape and some MacGyver ingenuity!

• Small, empty jars — This could be fun! Maybe I can collect bugs or fecal specimens or gift them to the counselors for weed storage.

• Giant underwear — I could have easily fit three of my friends inside — or, I could use the shoe laces and fashion a 1800’s bonnet or a bandeau top.

• A picture of my dog —Awww so cute! Wait, who’s that lady in the picture? What’s this note? He’s been re-homed to another family?!? Awesome.

  
  

My friends peered over my shoulder and looked at each other, almost as puzzled as I. It was mortifying at such a young age, and I quickly learned to open the packages in private. Never again would I experience euphoria upon hearing my named called at the mail center.

The next wave of care package terror came during my time at boarding school. As I progressed in life, the care packages progressed in absurdity.

• Various bread products — just in case food was scarce in the dining halls or I wanted to attract and tame pigeons and be known as weird pigeon girl. Every teen girl’s dream.

• More hotel notepads — because taking miniature notes in school was obviously easier than lugging around those cumbersome, college-ruled, spiral-bound notebooks.

• Socks with bunnies — in case I forgot to pack them for the year or needed toddler mittens.

• Paper clips — obviously for picking locks.

• Sweater combs — what else would I do with my free time when not training pigeons?

• Odd-sized Zip-lock baggies —to be used to carry around the tiny notepads. Or for weed storage.

• Rubber bands — presumably to fend off squirrels and boys.

• Leather elbow patches — to fashion into bikini tops or use as eye patches because a rubber-band found its way into my eye.

• A horse from my plastic horse collection — so I could also be known as weird horse girl.

• Paint brushes, no paint — with a note that read “for emergencies.” Emergency mouse-fencing championships? Emergency make up applicator? What in the Dead Poets Society kind of emergency requires paint brushes?!?!?!

• Giant underwear — to fend off boys. Highly effective.

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Next came college where the care packages got even more colorful and made for fun drinking games with friends. Take a shot if she sends you socks!

• Rubber gloves —actually quite useful when attending any party where your drink is served out of a garbage bin. Or for touching anything in your dorm.

• Ear wax removal kit —on every college-age girl’s wish-list. Can be transformed into a mini bong for squirrels in the right hands.

• Hospital socks — so comforting and cozy! And who was in the hospital?

• X-acto knife — either to murder the annoying roommate who blow dries her hair at 4 a.m., or to aid in the transformation of the ear wax removal kit.

• Change purse —for panhandling on the streets in style.

• A pack of guitar picks — with a note saying “can be used to open envelopes.” In case those carrier pigeons came around.

• A thimble — for those paint-brush wielding fencing mice

• Giant underwear — for scaring or scarring frat guys. Moderately effective.

  
  

Next came the adult chapter of my life culminating in marriage and 2.5 kids. The care packages kept on coming, chock full of subliminal messages about my hygiene and lack of domestic skills.

• Seem ripper — because I have miraculously transformed into a seamstress despite not knowing how to sew on a button.

• The smallest Tupperware containers ever invented — for ant food storage. Or for my collection of imaginary weed. At least I am prepared.

• Nail brush from my childhood— I was looking for that pink, plastic teddybear shaped nail brush that’s older than the last three presidents combined. Oh look! If you blow on it, the bristles whimsically float away like the feathery tufts from a dandelion.

• Shoe polish in colors shoes don’t come in — perhaps I will have an orange or green loafer at some point.

• Jam made from obscure fruit — move over marmalade! Kumquat jelly is here to stay — and who needs raspberry jam when you can have lingonberry and transform into Elsa and sing on an icy fjord.

• Christmas themed hand soap in May — some deals are just too good to pass up.

• Individually wrapped tooth picks — I live in Texas now, so where’s my banjo?

• Giant Underwear — to scare off my husband. Highly ineffective.

• Directory of students from 1998 — just in case I want to remember which dorms my chums lived in 600 years ago.

  
  

My mom now lives close by — too close for comfort or for her whacky care packages. I kind of miss them. She’ll still surprise me on occasion with odd goods like that ice tray she recently brought over.

She explained I could use it to store leftover, fresh herbs so they wouldn’t spoil. I told her I had other plans for it, but would first need to procure some paper clips, shoe laces, sponges, giant underwear and rubber bands.

Luckily she knows a guy.