I subscribe to many blogs, and today one of them posted this link to Wisdom Teeth, a short film by Don Hertzfeldt:

Personally, I find this video rather entertaining.  Disturbing and totally random, yes–but enjoyable nonetheless. I am a big fan of off-beat humor and creativity, so I was amused by it.  Make sure you wait for the end to see the odd and somewhat unexpected ending.  (P.S. the Scandinavian accents are completely fake, and the stick figures are actually talking in gibberish–or at least that’s what I read online…).

While this video is entertaining in its own right, I couldn’t help but recall one of my favorite stories of my mother while watching it.

For those of you who are lucky enough to know my mother, you know that she is incredible.  You know that she’s one of the most giving and loving people that you’ll ever meet.  And, most endearingly, you know that she’s adorably crazy.

You could say the apple didn’t fall far from the tree when it comes to my mom and me, as we both tend to get ourselves into the most embarrassingly awkward situations.

For example.

I grew up in a small town in New York.  Everyone knew everyone, and it was a common occurrence to run into someone you knew while running errands.

Picture courtesy of http://www.clker.com/clipart-priest.html

One day, my mom was shopping at the p.x. (the post exchange, or military catch-all store, for you non-military folks out there) when she ran into our church priest.  He was an older gentleman, and my mom knew him fairly well, as she was quite involved in the church.

As they were visiting, my mom noticed that he had a loose thread hanging on his shirt.  Always the helpful one, she nonchalantly reached up and pulled on the thread during the course of their conversation.  Assuming that the thread would immediately come loose, she was a little surprised when it remained attached to the shirt.  Determined, she kept pulling, while our priest kept talking.  Soon, the priest started smirking, and my mom, feeling embarrassed (yet still pulling), said, “gosh, this thread just won’t come off.”  His response?

“That’s because it’s connected to my chest.”

Realizing that she had just spent the better part of five minutes pulling on a priest’s chest hair in the middle of a store, my mom was understandably mortified.  Luckily, the priest had a sense of humor and all was fine.

I just love that story.

And yes, I realize that it’s a bit of a jump to go from the wisdom teeth video to my mom’s chest-hair pulling incident, but that’s just the way my mind works.