Chasing Away the Blues

Herbert and Mary Frances Cohen had played bridge throughout their marriage until Herb's Alzheimer's disease extinguished his spark of brilliance. With Herb fading, Mary Frances fell into the spirited weekly mah jong games, which had continued each week until this unforgettable late summer evening.  After Herbie's brutal murder at the hands of a fellow psychiatric patient at Hollywood Memorial Hospital, the mahj games were among the few things that Mary truly enjoyed.

"What's wrong, mom?"

"Hmmm?"

"I said, what's going on?" shouted her lazy son from his customary prone position on the tattered living room couch.

"You're what's wrong.  You NEVER do anything," said Mary Frances.  A sentiment that was essentially true save for the 50 hours he spent toiling as Senior Editor in the underbelly of a publicly traded computer reseller that conducted most of its business on the Internet, along with the 1.5 hours per day he spent driving to and fro.

"I'm depressed," Donnie Cohen said.  "Leave me alone.  It's all I can do to do my job and drive home."

"Snabougmait."

"What?"

"Hmmm?"

"Did you just tell me to snap out of it?"

"Yes I did," Mary Frances said emphatically enough that her garbled speech had become crystal clear.  Nothing irritated her more than seeing her talented son wasting his life, vegging away on that couch.

"You're changing the subject, mom.  I'm almost always depressed, it's you I'm worried about."

"Don't worry about me," Mary Frances said.  "Just get your damn shoes off the couch!"

At Donnie's refusal to move, Mary Frances hobbled to the couch and removed the shoes from his feet."

"Donald Cohen, when are you going to learn?"

"Never.  As long as I have such great service."

The roomies never stopped jousting, mostly with Donald initiating the combat.

"Isn't she a knockout?" he'd ask a store clerk.

"She's adorable," was the near unanimous response.

"Pretty damned good looking wench for a 102-year old," a statement that typically earned Donald a gentle swipe from the old woman's cane.

Running his hand through his mom's thinning blonde hair was one of Don's favorite public maneuvers, followed by a mournful, "Old lady patterned baldness."

Through the toughest of times, mother and son rarely got angry at each other, though they existed in a perpetual state of mild irritation.

However, Mary's career as a sleuth was to begin that very August day, although she'd been acquiring and perfecting her deductive genius for as long as Donald could remember.