Chick Wit: Hearing aids, bras: Tactical weapons

History is littered with famous battles, but even the biggest pale in comparison with the battles in the Scottoline household when my mother is in for a visit. Two of my favorites are the Battle of the Hearing Aid and the Battle of the Thirty-Year-Old Bra.

The first shot in the Battle of the Hearing Aid is fired as soon as my mother gets off the plane. Daughter Francesca and I meet her at Terminal B and ask, "How was your flight?"

"Red," my mother answers, giving us a big hug.

"Did you get any sleep?"

"Seven thirty," she says, with a sweet smile. Francesca and I exchange glances, and we group-hug her to the car. She insists on sitting in the back seat, where she won't be able to see our faces, losing all visual cues of what we're saying, which guarantees that the conversation will be a string of non sequiturs until the shouting starts.

"Ma, did you get anything to eat on the plane?" I ask, raising my voice.

Total silence.

"Ma, did they feed you on the plane?"

More silence.

"MA, ARE YOU HUNGRY? OR CAN YOU WAIT UNTIL WE GET HOME?"

"What?"

"YOU WANT TO EAT OUT OR GO HOME?!"

You see the problem. I'm exhausted from her visit and we haven't even left the car. Already my emotions are swinging from guilt to resentment, the drama pendulum. My mother is a funny, smart and talkative lady, but if she can't hear, she'll eventually check out of the conversation, and in time, I'll get tired of repeating and shouting, so I'll talk as if she isn't there.

And you thought I was a nice person. Now you know.

By the way, my mother already has a hearing aid, which took the Boer War for her to get, but she needs a second one. I cannot understand why the second hearing aid has become such a donnybrook. If you have the first one, what's the big deal? You're no longer a hearing-aid virgin.

Plus, I had asked her to get another hearing aid as my Christmas present, which gives me a powerful weapon for my battle plan. I ambush her at dinner, sneak-attacking. "Ma, I can't believe you didn't get the second hearing aid."

Her snowy head remains down, and she stabs a piece of salmon with her fork, which means that either she didn't hear me or she's formulating her counteroffensive. Don't underestimate her just because she's older. Experience molds great generals. Patton was no kid, and my mother makes him look like Gandhi.

"MOM, WHY DIDN'T YOU GET THE SECOND HEARING AID?"

My mother looks up calmly and blinks her brown eyes, cloudy behind her bifocals. "Why are you shouting at me?"

"I DON'T KNOW. MAYBE BECAUSE YOU DON'T HAVE A SECOND HEARING AID? JUST A GUESS."

"How can you start in with that while I'm eating? You'll make me choke." Whereupon my mother flushes red and begins a coughing fit that ends with her clutching her chest.

Ka-boom! My barrage of guilt infliction is blown out of the water by a fake cardiac arrest.

I never had a chance.

The Battle of the Thirty-Year-Old Bra begins when my mother puts on the stretchy shirt I gave her for Christmas and declares that it doesn't fit correctly. You don't need to be on Project Runway to see the problem. The shirt doesn't have darts at the waist, and her breasts are in Australia.

"Ma, the shirt is fine. You need a new bra."

"What?"

"HOW OLD IS YOUR BRA?"

"Since when is that your business?"

"YOUR BREASTS ARE TOO LOW!"

"Look who's talking."

She has a point. I'm not wearing a bra, but I hear they work miracles if you actually care. I'm braless unless I have a book signing. Then I haul out my underwire, which is heavy artillery for girls.

Francesca asks my mother, gently, "The elastic has given out, if your bra is older than two years. Is it?"

Are you kidding, I think, but keep my own counsel. I haven't bought a bra in five years and I know my mother hasn't bought one in 10. I would guess that her bra is 20 years old or maybe even 30. In fact, I'd bet money that her bra's in menopause and a member of AARP.

I could continue the story, but you get the idea. She won't get a new bra, which doesn't matter as much as a hearing aid.

I pick my battles, though in the end I lose them all.