Episode: 218

Original Air Date: 2/18/01

It started when we met Mom at work to go get haircuts at the barber college. I hate the barber college; they always mess up. But it's free, so I guess you get what you pay for. Anyway, as soon as we pulled out of the Lucky Aid, Mom got pulled over and got a ticket. She got in a fight with the cop, got arrested for unpaid parking tickets and the car got towed away. It was actually kind of cool.

Later, after Dad bailed Mom out, she told us that she was a victim of entrapment. She didn't give the cop a discount or something and so he was out to get her. But the parking tickets had Francis written all over them. Mom said he couldn't come home until he paid the $747 fines! She was so sure that the ticket was a sham that she insisted on taking it to court. Dad didn't think this was a good idea, but when Mom has her mind set on something, there's no use arguing.

The next day, I stopped by Lucky Aid so Craig could give me a ride, and he was watching surveillance tapes from the store. (I think he just uses them to check out women in the store.) I realized he had a tape of the parking lot from the day of Mom's "incident." The footage showed that she really did cut a car off! It was like the Holy Grail of videotape.

Reese and I were so excited about Mom being wrong we couldn't stop giggling. But when we saw Mom, we chickened out about showing her the tape. Francis told me I should cherish this opportunity to gloat, but I knew Mom would kill the messenger - me! So, I showed Dad the evidence and he was shocked. Later when Mom came home ranting about the cop, saying how he was "going down," Dad showed her the tape. We all waited for her to explode, but she just kept insisting the tape was wrong.

Somehow, Dad convinced her that it was okay to be wrong and Mom took on a whole new perspective. She was a lot nicer, for one thing. And she agreed to go to traffic school, instead of fighting the ticket. Oh, and she told Francis he could forget about the money.

Everything was going great until stupid Craig showed up with another videotape - from the convenience store across from Lucky Aid. It clearly showed that Mom didn't cut that car off after all. What else could we do but destroy the tape and swear Craig to secrecy?