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Oh
Mother, Where Art Thou? PAGE
TWO I'd then have a guy on a steady cam follow her to the cash register and we'd listen as she tells the cashier all about how her daughter is very ill and she takes care of her grandchildren and that her finances are in tragic disarray and that she might have to soon claim bankruptcy, and let's cross our fingers that this credit card works -- or wait, maybe this one, all the while basking in the cashier's freakish attention, like a streaker at a European soccer match. Intermittently I'd cut back to the van to show the children, ages five through eight, sitting in their seats, still belted in, talking about Hillary Duff or Lindsay Lohan, then nodding off, coughing and occasionally wiping their runny noses on their sleeves. I'd now transition to an exterior camera and show the 67-year-old grandmother of 11 entering the van, the kids clamoring in dehydrated excitement, her shrieking at them to sit down. We'd watch the van pull out of the spot, narrowly missing a Toyota Prius whizzing by behind her, and we'd show what looks to be a bystander dialing the police to report what she believes to be a reckless driver in a van with four children inside. Because this is reality television, a Police Cruiser would just happen to be nearby and would observe the driver of the van barely avoiding a collision with a shopping cart, then a bright yellow concrete pole. The police would pull the 67-year-old Grandmother of 11 over before she exits the parking lot. After speaking to her and experiencing her indiscernible chatter firsthand, the officer would conclude that this driver is intoxicated and the four children in the car are in danger. She wouldn't be intoxicated, though. She would be this 67-year-old Grandmother of 11 in her normal state. Wacky, with a backwards W. Meanwhile, a female officer in a second squad car would gather the four beautiful fever-filled snifflers from the back of the van and take them back home to their mother, who by this time would have woken and fixed herself a grilled cheese sandwich and begun to wonder where everyone had gone. At
this point in the pilot episode, I'd have to recuse myself from
my role as director because I'd just witnessed my mother being arrested
for misdemeanor DUI and felony child endangerment. In addition to
it being an obvious conflict of interest, I'd be much too self-conscious
to be included in this exploitation and could not allow the cameras
to show the audience the years of anger and pain peeking out from
behind my eyes. Remember, it's only funny if you're showing the
crazy, shrieking grandmother in the van. This time the cameras would be on me. First, they would show me swallowing the giant lump in my throat labeled "anger." Next, I'd pick up a phone and begin inquiring about my mother's whereabouts, gathering information and making plans for her $100,000 bail, and phoning lawyer-friends, explaining how ridiculous this is, and telling them she's 67 years old and a Grandmother of 11 for God's sake who as an avowed Mormon has never had a drink in her life, is in a jail cell and she must be so scared sitting there and even SHE doesn't deserve this, and Oh my God I can't believe she's in jail and I'd stay up all night and finally get her released and eventually get the charges dropped and all along the way I'd find myself crying and wiping away the tears being shed for a woman, my mother, who did the best she could. Because the bottom line about that rambling, crazy, selfish 67-year-old grandmother of 11, is that when she was arrested and wrongly accused of Misdemeanor DUI and felony child endangerment, she was in fact at the store buying Pedialite for her four, sick-with-the-flu, beautiful young grandchildren, once again doing the best she could. Yeah, I think I'd call that show Forgiveness. I hope it makes it on the air.
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I
would have another camera pick her up as she enters the parking
lot of the Sav-On drugstore where she clumsily pulls into the handicapped
spot, grazing the pole. I'd then cut to one of many cameras inside
the store where we would observe her entering and stopping at the
magazine rack to find out what's happening with Brad & Jen.
Then on to the cosmetics aisle where she pauses to look at a newly
arrived shipment of Cover Girl lipsticks, and finally at the pharmacy
counter where she rambles on for several minutes to the friendly
pharmacist who is familiar with her and nods and acts as if he's
listening, trying to cut her off so he can advise her to buy Pedialite
for her four sick grandchildren. 
