Boogie on, reggae woman

So my mama and my aunt are currently cruising the tropics. One of their stops is in Jamaica, and Steve and I have been postulating wildly on what these two tee-totalling, Southern, Christian ladies are up to down there, and what they'll be like when they get back.

We figure my aunt will come stumbling off the boat reeking of Red Stripe and calling everybody "mon." She'll be wearing a tie-dyed Bob Marley tee and sporting a head full of beaded braids like every frat/sorority kid who's ever been there.

My mama will have had a more spiritual experience. She'll have wrapped her hair in a green, yellow and black headdress and will have adopted a militant, if red-eyed, stance. First thing, she'll call my sister Jill, and instead of begging her to cut her dreadlocks, will ask how to best maintain them. She'll read Haile Selassie's autobiography and get in trouble at the Methodist church for saying "Jah" instead of the other word. She'll start using the pronoun "I" twice and will sign off her e-mails "One Love." Then, she'll focus her energy on the legalization of marijuana movement (with the full support of Willie Nelson) and will start calling the police "babylon."

Next time we go to Shallotte, we'll have jerk chicken and plaintains for dinner with the delightful tones of Peter Tosh's "Legalize It" on the stereo, followed by foot-long spliff of ganga, Scooby snacks and a long nap. Steve and I will come back to Raleigh, get drug tested and lose our jobs. We'll protest, saying my mother forced it on us as part of her religion, but HR will turn us down. Then my mother, the rasta activist, will raise a big stink in the press and our companies will give us our jobs back, but we'll be pariahs.

Why, oh why, couldn't they have cruised Alaska again?