Unnecessary (Twilight) Interruptions (Warning: Long, Rambling Rant Ahead.)

I've been trying to think how to broach this subject for a while now without sounding mean. I don't know if it can be done delicately, but I really must get something off my chest.

My mom is obsessed with Twilight.

And it's ruining my life.

Now before you start to think that I'm being overly dramatic, just hear me out.

It wasn't when she read the books, or even when she knew they were going to make a movie about them, I think it all started when she saw on Entertainment Tonight who was going to be in the movie. My mom immediately called me up to have me look up who Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart are.

Now my mom doesn't have Internet, or even a computer for that matter. I've been trying to talk her into buying one for herself for months. She has the money, she just doesn't want to deal with learning how to use a computer yet. (And why should she when she has a perfectly good, computer literate daughter that is just a phone call away?)

Once she realized that Robert Pattinson was in some of the Harry Potter movies, she started watching them all over again, wanting to see who was going to be Edward, the vampire.

Then one day she asked me if I knew anything else Robert Pattinson had been in. I made the mistake of telling her I could look him up on the Internet to find out a little more about him. So then she started calling me, having me look up other things.

This would have been fine, if kept to a minimum. Unfortunately, it was like having another kid around. One who called a lot and asked a lot of questions.

Where do you think Robert Pattinson was born?

Has he been in anything else besides Harry Potter?

Has Kristen Stewart been in other movies?

Then her interest started to move into obsession. My mom bought every pre-Twilight book that was printed. And somewhere along the way, she discovered Amazon.com. Again, since she doesn't own a computer, guess who she called every time she wanted to buy a book.

Things finally calmed down for a while about the time the movie actually came out. It turned out to be the calm before the storm. (Yes, she did drag me to the movie one of the 15 plus times she has seen it on the big screen. I thought it was all right, not my favorite though.)

Once my mom saw the actual movie things got way worse. Everything was "Robert Pattinson" this and "Robert Pattinson" that. She started buying more books about Robert Pattinson and magazines with him on the cover. Every conversation was about "Robert" or "Edward", as she sometimes called him.

How do you tell your mom that she is a raving lunatic without being disrespectful?

One day she had me on the computer on Amazon.com looking up each and every book about Robert Pattinson. I went through the extensive list and had to read each and every title out loud over the phone. We (she)ordered over $100 worth of books about Robert Pattinson. I came to one book and said "This one just looks like a stupid little teenager book." She said to tell her the title anyway. I read it and she said, "Oh, I already have that one."

Someone please help me!

Can I just say here that I have no desire to read any of the Twilight books. First of all, I'm not into vampires, or any other mythological creatures for that matter. Even the Harry Potter series is pushing it for me. At this point if I were to read the Twilight books I'd have to discuss them all with my mom at great length. And, honestly, I really don't have time for that.

I'm too busy ordering other Twilight-related paraphanelia for my mom on Amazon.com.

She actually ended up ordering not one, but two special edition, double DVD Twilight movies. I told her I hoped she didn't think one was for me, because I was certainly not going to buy it. I buy all our DVDs used at Hollywood video for $5.99, even ones that I really want. She was sure someone else would want one so she went ahead and ordered both.

My mom went to all the midnight release parties for the movie, even though she had it ordered already (twice). She called me the next day and said, "Guess what! At Wal-Mart they drew numbers and they picked mine, so I was able to buy the special edition movie for only $17.99." I gently reminded her that she already HAD two other movies for the same price coming from Amazon that day. I started to panic because I didn't want to get stuck with one. She assured me that one of her friends would buy one and that she would keep the other to loan out to her friends.

Who does that?

If her friends liked the movie so much, they would buy their own, wouldn't they?

Well, things have calmed down somewhat, though my mom continues to buy any magazine that has Robert Pattinson on the cover, mostly teenage magazines. I have kind of enjoyed that part because she gives me the posters inside them, thinking my girls will be interested in the Miley Cyrus or Jonas Brothers posters. I use them to terrorize Morgan and Ally by taping the posters to their doors while they are sleeping. (They are not interested in Miley or the Jo Bros. Ally is a little past that point and Morgan was never interested.)

I went to my mom's house the other day and she had actually bought a G.Q. magazine because Robert was on the cover. I try not to give too much attention to things like that, because if I act at all interested then she takes it as an invitation to talk on and on about Robert and how wonderful she thinks he is. She talks about "Edward" and then when I act confused, she says "That's what I like to call him.", as if they are on a first name basis.

I need to know, should I call an intervention for this type of behavior?

My mom was on a new kind of kick today. She could buy magazines with leftover frequent flier miles so she called to ask for my help. Some of the titles were unfamiliar so she wanted me to look them up on the Internet to see if any of them were the type of magazine that would have "Robert" on the cover. I got as far as looking up New York Magazine when my Internet locked up. It was so bad that I told her I would need to shut the computer all the way down and pull it back up and it would take at least 20 minutes. I was also in the middle of the orange crayon incident, so I asked her to call me back in a couple of hours, after I had scrubbed all of the crayon out of the clothes.

Exactly one hour and 59 minutes later she called. I was still working on Hal's church shirt so I asked her to call back in 45 minutes. Exactly 45 minutes later she called. I swear she must have set a timer!

I put the clothes on hold and looked again at the magazines for her. My mother is nothing, if not persistent.

Oh yes, last week Morgan and I took my mom to the play, Wicked. While we walked to the theater from our hotel, my mom started telling Morgan about how "Robert" is afraid someone will stab him with a hypodermic needle and kidnap him (or something like that). When Morgan had the audacity to ask her grandma who Robert was, my mom snapped "Robert Pattinson." as if Morgan was a silly little fool who should have known.

I did buy my mom a box of "Twilight" candy hearts (leftover from Valentine's Day) for May Day. When Morgan and I presented them to her she said she was glad we'd bought the ones with Robert on the front because she already had the ones with Kristen. She told Morgan she bought Kristen because she already had so many things with Robert on them.

Does anyone else have a mom with similar qualities that we could put into contact with my mom? They could keep each other company talking about Twilight trivia.

Today I started thinking of all the time I've wasted hearing trivial facts
I've wasted a lot of time, but I have learned a lot of interesting, though useless information.

Like when is Robert Pattinson's birthday? (It's May 13. Yesterday. Do you know how I know? She told me yesterday at Austin's preschool graduation. Twice. Loudly. And once more at my house because I didn't respond at the preschool graduation.)

That woman has got to get herself a computer!

Oh, and p.s., Robert Pattinson smells like roses too, in case you wanted to know. My mom read it somewhere, so it must be true!