Big Ask

"If you don’t ask, the answer will always be no.”

It’s amazing how the simple can suddenly become sacred.

My mother’s been gone for 20 years now and I’m still reluctant to part with anything that she’s written.

I still have many of the birthday, Christmas, and Easter cards she gave me over the years, as well as a handful of newspaper articles that she thought I could use, and a yellowing copy of a poem called “Don’t Quit” that I taped on the wall just above my computer.

It was much worse in those terrible days immediately after her death when I couldn’t even part with her shopping lists.

A scrap of paper ticking off such everyday items as milk, bread and eggs turns into a priceless artifact when the person who wrote those words is gone forever.

It was an entirely different story when I was a kid and I’d go shopping with one of her lists in hand.

I was extremely self-conscious back then, determined not to cause a stir, and whenever my mother put something on the list that I couldn’t find on the shelves, I would fib (lie) when I got home and tell her the local grocery store didn’t have whatever she wanted.

She quickly grew wise to my little scam and, so whenever she wrote down something out-of-the-ordinary on her shopping lists, she made sure to write the word “Ask!” in block letters next to the item in question.

Sure, I could’ve continued lying, but there was something about that powerful penmanship that drove me to approach the store owner and, well…ask!

It was like my mother was standing right behind me waiting for me to ignore her commandment.

And she had this way of interrogating me when she thought I was being less than candid.

Snip, Snip...

She’d ask a question, squint me in the eye and, if she didn’t like what she saw, declare “I see the ‘L’ on your forehead!”

The L word in question was “Lie” and I’d always cave when she called me out. It was her own personal polygraph and it worked on me well into my thirties.

I was equally awkward with coupons, which she also cut out of the newspaper, along with those helpful articles.

I found it embarrassing to hand over these bits of paper that offered a minor discount—at best—for some product we rarely purchased.

Of course, I wasn’t paying the bills back then so I could afford to cop an attitude.

I’m older now and I’ve taken a different view of my mother’s “Ask” notation and coupon collecting.

While it looked like nagging at the time, now I see that she was giving me an important life lesson.

If you want anything in this life you have to ask for it and that goes way beyond groceries to include love, respect, and happiness.

And it’s not just what we ask from other people; sometimes we need to ask a lot of ourselves to get out of our own way, to stop unhealthy behavior, lose our various hang-ups and live life to the fullest.

If only my mother could’ve seen me at the supermarket recently, where I’ve been using coupons for the last two weeks.

Prices are skyrocketing obscenely and knocking five bucks off the bill felt pretty good—and I don’t give a damn who sees me.

I went to a barbeque at my sister’s apartment yesterday, but I took a detour to stop at a local Vitamin Shoppe to stock up on my supplements.

The store had mailed a coupon to me a few weeks ago and it was about to run out.

I could either look this gift horse in the mouth or get a discount on my Vitamin C supply. Which one did I do?

Don't even ask.