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Maybe it didn't happen.

My mom is unintentionally pretty funny. For instance, the last time I visited, she vetoed one of my childhood memories. I was reminiscing with my sister about summer nights in the bedroom we shared. TRUTH: when it was muggy and over 90 degrees at night, our only relief in our 3rd floor bedroom (a converted attic) was this box window fan. Problem was, the fan didn't really work. If there was no breeze to move the fan, all you'd hear was the whirl of the motor while the blades stood still. My sister and I would be spread-eagle on our beds, gasping for air, and I was always the one who got up and pushed a finger through the shield to try to move the blades to "jumpstart" it. Honest to God -- it was like those old propeller planes you see in silent movies. If I pushed it just right, the blades would start turning and I'd hurry back to bed for the 3 minutes of air that I squeezed out of the fan.

My mom overheard me talking about this, and she said, "That didn't happen." I shook my head: "what?" "Oh, that didn't happen, Kathy. You have some imagination."

"Mom, why would I make this up?"

"I don't know, but I would never let you girls have a fan that didn't work."

So, for some reason, my sister and I share this memory, but my mother can trump that with a simple declarative statement: "That didn't happen." Maybe if I lost the tip of my finger in the fan, she would believe me. But then again, maybe not. She'd probably and blame it on the neighbor's dog...even if our neighbors owned cats.

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