My mom has traveled all over the world. I can’t remember a year since my dad died that she didn’t take at least two trips. As she’s aged she has become even more eager to see all of those places left on her list. She was recently invited to a family reunion, and I am using the term family reunion so loosely here. These people happen to share her maiden name but they are, as far as I can tell, so far from being related to us that I could slip my tongues inside their mouths or even marry one without igniting a fervor of societal shame and judgment. Maybe cousins, 400 times removed or something.

Anyway, she called me last night and asked me to go with her. While we were talking, I utilized my computer to look up this small town in Michigan. My mom also has the power to go on the internet while talking on the phone, but she is so used to having dial -up that she forgets to use it. I tell her the town’s population. It is a small town. I map from my house to there and tell her the miles. She is impressed with my mad geography skills and I am hungry for praise, so I don’t tell her my secret, although she must hear me typing. Maybe.

She wonders aloud where we would have a stopover and how long the flight is. “Oh, Denver, CO, I think, or maybe Chicago, and the flight would be about 10 hours.”

“Hmmm”, she responds. I think I am caught, but I am too busy being clever, so I rattle off facts like a walking talking traveling encyclopedia. “How are you doing that?” she finally says. I tell her, with a laugh, and mention that she could be on her computer at the same time. “I don’t know how to do that!”

“Just go to Google.com…”

“I don’t know where that is.”

I have almost given up teaching my mom how to use her computer. She knows how to check her email and that’s about it. Oh, and she likes to play solitaire. Alex refers to her computer as a very expensive deck of cards, but when I think about the thousand dollar phone bills she used to have I think email is a very good thing for her. I don’t even resent the four hours I spent trying to teach her to copy and paste. Much. (She still can’t do it.) Maybe I am a bad teacher.

She asks me where the plane lands and I say Detroit. There is silence, then finally she says in a horrified whisper, “Oh hell no. We are not going to Detroit.” “Why not?” I ask, fascinated to hear that there is somewhere she won’t travel. I swear this woman would fly to Bagdad right now, why not Detroit?

“Have you…heard…about Detroit?” she asks me. Her breathing is faster. Yeah, I’ve heard about Detroit, but this is fun. “Isn’t Kid Rock from Detroit?” I ask. She doesn’t know who Kid Rock is, but she continues, “I’ve heard that when you arrive in Detroit it is so dangerous, there are armed guards everywhere.”

“So it’s like LA, except you can see the guns?” I laugh, but she’s not taking it. “Is there anywhere else we can fly into and avoid Detroit?”

I type on my computer a little bit more and tell her that yeah, we can fly into Buffalo NY. She is thrilled, until I continue with and then rent a car in Buffalo, and drive to small(unnamed)town Michigan, through Detroit.

She is horribly disappointed at this time, but me? All of the sudden I want to go to Detroit. I want to see what stops Mom the world traveler in her tracks. I try to explain that her “family” reunion is being held so close to Detroit that she could spit from this idyllic small town and hit the city. She gives up for the night.

Today when she called me I answered with, “Hey! So when are we going to Detroit?”

“Oh, we’re going. But we’re NOT GOING TO DETROIT!”

Most certainly I am going to hell for this. The whole thing was interesting and while I had no desire to go to this reunion in the first place, I created a monster. A Detroit avoiding, I want to go in any way possible, certifiable monster.