That One Time Ann-Margret Saved Our Lives

By Tim Parks

That One Time That Ann-Margaret Saved Our Lives

By Tim Parks

Mom wasn’t anywhere. We couldn’t see her, she didn’t answer our worried calls,

responding with where she was. The answer was nowhere near our broken-down car.

What was supposed to be a fun family trip had proven to be just the opposite.

No mom. No one in sight. No way to get home.

But there was one thing, the blazing Nevada sun, and temperatures nearing 100. The

car gave up the ghost 25 miles shy of Las Vegas. Mom had gotten a job at Caesar’s

Palace as a cocktail waitress. She had fudged on her resume, stating that she had over

15 years of experience in the service industry. It was less what you would call a white

lie, and more like a matter of how you looked at things.

She and Dad had been married for 15 years, and he expected her to be at his disposal,

barking out orders like Mel on Alice, until Mom finally told him to stow it. Her exact

words were “You can shove this marriage right up your bum, Dennis!”

And with that, an already fractured home was broken. My sister Nancy and I became a

statistic, and Mom...well, she became someone different. No longer a haus frau, but a

person. A person who cut her mousy brown hair and replaced its color with a

reddish/orange hue courtesy of a box she bought at the Save-Rite. A person with

aspirations of stardom. Cocktail waitressing was merely a necessary steppingstone in

getting there at Caesar’s Palace.

She no longer seemed like Annie Olsson, but a woman with a mission.

Right now, her mission was to find help for us, having trekked down the road hours ago,

telling us not to drink the Tropical Punch Kool-Aid or eat all the liverwurst sandwiches

she had packed for the road. No problem there! The little red devil on the package

seemed to be a warning this meal is from Satan himself.

“Erik, I’m scared.” Nancy said vulnerably.

“Everything will be just fine,” I replied, not sure I believed the words of comfort for my

little sister, she was usually a pillar, while I was crumbling in my newly appointed man of

the house title.

Mom was either working, or too tired from working to field any questions, like she was

already famous and simply could not engage with anyone from the press. Speaking of

press, well, more like pressing.

My bladder was singing more than Mom in the bathroom with its better acoustics, as

she explained, in our two-bedroom apartment in Pahrump. While I didn’t want to leave

my sister alone, the only other option was to bring her with me while I peed.

A bladder full of Tropical Punch Kool-Aid made up my mind for me, and as I had only

told her to look away while I relieved myself; I hadn’t said anything about not listening.

As soon as I was done, she remarked that I must have been saving that one up.

Although I was just two years older than her at 11, she was wise beyond her years, and

her smart mouth was evidence of that. She would get into it with the old man frequently

and give him a verbal dressing down that was both a sight to see and hear. In a way,

she was speaking for Mom because she couldn’t do it for herself.

And now who knew where Mom was? Did she get lost and end up at Roswell courtesy

of a UFO, like I’d seen on In Search Of...? And rather than stay put, I made a head of

the household decision to try and find her. I was about to suggest to Nancy we do this

and hightail it back to the highway, but...

There was something neither too far, nor too close winking at me. The sun bursting right

out of the sky had found something in one of its rays. Without a word from me, I pulled

Nancy by the arm, which opened her mouth like a defective ventriloquist’s dummy.

“You nearly pulled my arm out of the socket,” She squelched in her best Olivia Newton-

John in Grease impression.

Courtesy of the unyielding sun, I found the object in question. It was a lone earring from

the pair that Grandmother had given her as a consolation prize of sorts for her finally

divorcing Dad.

The sun reflecting off it blinded me, and when I regained my sight is when I saw Nancy

running to a, well, shack is a nice word for it.

“Hey! Wait up!” I yelled.

“Well, if you didn’t run like a girl, then one wouldn’t have beaten you!” She said when I

finally made it to the porch.

There was a sound of breaking glass and a chair being knocked over. I wiped a

century’s worth of dust and grime from the window by the front door. It didn’t afford the

best of views, but there was no mistaking a woman dancing and singing inside. And her

voice was familiar.

But it did not belong to Mom. I tried to get a better view by taking the sleeve of my

jacket, which she made me wear for some reason, and wiped away more guck.

The mystery lady heard me make the window squeak, because she turned around

startled, came outside and you could have pinched me a million times because she was

a dead ringer for the former Mrs. Ollson. Or it may have been vice versa.

Standing before us was Ann-Margret, and Nancy had seen Bye Bye Birdie a billion times and was telling her just that. I only knew her as Ann-Margrock on The Flintstones.

After we explain our situation, she walked us back to the car where Mom was sitting

behind the steering wheel with her head resting on it, and jump straight up after we both

yelled, “Mom! Mom!”

She leapt from the open driver’s door and stopped in her tracks when she saw who was

with us, giving her the biggest hug imaginable. And then Ann-Margrock asked Mom to

take a picture of her with us. Just common folk!

The sun acted as the flashbulb, washing out the moment like a nuclear blast...and as

Ann-Margret drove towards her residency at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas, she

wondered what had brought about the flight of fancy of being a mother, if she had

always been Annie Ollson and never Ann-Margaret. When she looked into the rearview

mirror, she put her thumb and finger to her earlobe spoke aloud.

“Now where did that earring go?”