How My Mother Joined the Order, the Inside Story. As In the One That Isn't Hers...
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| Title: | How My Mother Joined the Order, the Inside Story. As In the One That Isn't Hers... |
| Creator: | Meredith |
| Date(s): | March/April 2000 |
| Medium: | online |
| Fandom: | The X-Files |
| Topic: | |
| External Links: | OBSSE Newsletter: March/April 2000 News for the OBSSEsed, Archived version |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
How My Mother Joined the Order, the Inside Story. As In the One That Isn't Hers... is a 2000 essay by Meredith.
It was published in the X-files newsletter, News for the OBSSEsed #33.
A companion essay is How I Joined OBSSE, Learned to love Scully, and not to worry about Alien Conspiracies by Janelle.
Excerpts
When I first started watching the X-Files, I was still in high school and Mom was working on a master's degree. The computer was in the same room as the TV, so every Friday night the battle would wage over the degree of lighting. Mom always won. I tried desperately to get her interested in my new favorite show, but since she had endured my other obsessions with her typical enthusiasm ("Guitar. That's nice, dear. Go play on the back porch.") she didn't have much time to spare on a TV show.
"Hey Mom," I would say, "there's this show with this special agent who is a woman and kicks serious ass, I think you would really like her."
"Oh, right." she would say, like I mentioned alligators or commodes or something.
Weeks went by, months went by, and I discovered the OBSSE on a lovely summer's day in early June of 1997. Mom was never comfortable with my being on the internet, and she was definitely not thrilled.
"Hey Mom," I would say, "I found this group on the internet devoted to that agent who kicks serious ass on The X-Files and they've got the best sense of humor. It's an 'abbey' with Scully as their patron saint. You should read some of the hilarious things they've got."
Months went by. It was my senior year of high school and I was wearing combat boots, too much black eyeliner, and dyed my hair red in the meantime. Mom of course blamed the OBSSE. In retaliation, she would make fun of me for buying X-Files stuff.
"Hey Mom," I would say, "Can I get this X-Files T-shirt?"
"It's your money," she would say, "Waste it on whatever crap you want."
So let's just say that she was less than happy when I asked if an internet friend could stay with us when she came to Austin for Spring Break. Especially when she found out that even though this person's name was "VerLaine Henn" my group called her "Sick!Chickie." With enough references she finally relented. And I think she liked having her with us because she quit bothering me about the OBSSE for awhile. Which was a good thing because it was about time for the first Fest to roll around.
Then Mom figured out IRC and joined the mailing list. Can I ever begin to express how weird it is to post to the list and then have your mother write you and say, "Your post was funny, but you forgot a comma." and say "Hi Mom!" when you enter a chat room? Or get an email that says "Oh, sure, never have time to write ME but you can write the OBSSE people?"
Though to be honest, all things considered, I'm glad she's in the Order. She's grown to love my red hair. I knew what to get her for Christmas. We hosted a Scully Marathon. I began to get care packages with the Movie in them. I got the X-Files game that first Christmas home, which led Mom to buy a new computer because her old one wasn't fast enough to play the X-Files game. I took the game back to college and found that my computer was also a bit slow for it, expecting to also get a new computer or at least an upgrade.
"Hey Mom," I said, "my computer is a little too slow to play the game, just like yours was."
"Great!" she replied, "Mail the game home!"
What's not to love?
... one can see how cool she has grown because of you people. I'm sure there's worse things to bond with Mom over than an article for an internet group, the internet group, going to a fest for the internet group, laughing over the latest thing Scully did, or getting to use words like "CHarc," "prancy" or "Ted Danson" at home. All in all, it's not a bad way to live. Besides, I'm sure that I'm never going to get a phone call from home between the hours of 9-10pm Eastern on Sunday nights.