Mommy Dearest’s Memoirs

In this comedic monologue for women from the play, “Mommy Dearest’s Memoirs”, Flora, an adult child, recounts the bizarre stories their mother told them as life lessons.

FLORA: My mother believed in hierarchy. She believed in structure. She believed in… alpha energy. Not for humans, no—she said we were too far gone. But for raccoons? For raccoons, there was still hope.

‘If you see a raccoon in the attic,’ she’d say, ‘you don’t call Animal Control. That’s weak. And raccoons smell weakness. No, you climb up there, look that raccoon dead in the eye, and assert dominance.’

And then she’d tell me the story. The defining moment of her life. The time she went up to the attic armed with a bottle of Febreze in one hand and a spatula in the other. ‘Why a spatula?’ I’d ask. And she’d say, ‘It’s a symbol. Of authority.’ Like… for who? The raccoon? Me? God?

She’d describe it in vivid detail, like some epic battle from history. ‘I locked eyes with it, and I hissed. Full-throated. From the diaphragm.’ And then—this part always killed me—she’d whisper, as if it was a state secret, ‘That raccoon respected me. You could see it in his little face. He nodded. Packed his little suitcase. And left.’

A suitcase. The raccoon, apparently, had luggage. And not just any luggage—‘Leather,’ she’d say. ‘With little brass buckles.’ And I’d sit there, nodding along, thinking, this is fine. Because how do you argue with someone who believes raccoon’s carry brass-buckled suitcases?

But the thing is, she didn’t stop there. She always had to moralize it. ‘Life is about knowing when to hiss,’ she’d tell me. ‘And when to spray the Febreze.’ Like she was Socrates. Like this was the great wisdom of the ages, passed down through the generations.

And I grew up with that in my head. That and nothing else. No talk about money, or college, or how to navigate life’s complexities. Just hiss at the raccoon. So naturally, when I got older, I applied it to everything. Job interviews? Hiss. Relationships? Hiss. That time the guy at Starbucks gave me decaf by accident? Hiss.

It’s not until years later, sitting in therapy—because of course I’m in therapy—when the therapist says, ‘Why do you think you do that?’ And I’m like, ‘Do what?’ And she says, ‘Assert dominance over baristas.’ And I hear my mother’s voice in my head saying, ‘Because that’s what separates humans from beasts.’

And now I’m crying about a raccoon that never existed, wondering if maybe I’m the raccoon. Maybe we’re all the raccoon. Wandering through life, dodging the hiss, hoping no one notices the suitcase we’re dragging behind us.

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