Last night, I'm two hours in to a shift from hell (with ten left to go) when my mom calls. She rarely calls me at work so I figure it's important.

Short and to the point my mother does not do well. I try to follow her meanderings through the din of ringing phones, crying babies, sounding alarms and a couple of four year olds banging on the windows like we are a zoo exhibit that is too boring.

About three/fourths through the conversation I realize just what it is she wants of me. Now, let me insert here that my mom and I get along great. We go shopping, to lunch, to movies. Heck, we even took a six day mother-daughter trip to San Francisco about a year ago.

But this!! A two and a half hour van ride to another city, well known for its unrelenting tackiness, to see the Radio City Rockettes perform. Sound good? Well, it would be the two of us and the other members of her over 65 Sunday school class.

Leaving at 10am, arriving for lunch, then see the show, then have dinner, then two and a half hours home. In a van. With ten old Baptist ladies. At least a ten hour trip.

I'd rather have a Brazilian wax job without a bullet to bite on.

So, I blew her off, claiming that everything was written down on my calendar at home and I didn't know if I would be free. Then I spent the rest of the night trying to come up with decent lies.

But in the end, I couldn't do it. I did the honesty thing and told her that I really just didn't have the time this week to take out an entire day. She wasn't too disappointed. I don't think.

Okay, so she gets two Christmas presents this year.