Fifty-Cent Mom

C ome in! Come in! Welcome to our home. The couch sags and smells like dog and old cigarettes, the kitchen ceiling is caving in, and our laundry room doubles as an ice-house in winter. Food’s good, and the company is fair. You might find yourself relaxing a bit once you move away from the dripping ceiling and off of the malodorous couch.       Fifty-cent Mom?  Not a dollar? Not a million? Why fifty-cents? One time I wrote the wrong amount for a family campout. When we got there the organizers said, “You’re fifty-cents short.”      Fifty-cents short. Fifty-cent Mom. Nothing brilliant - just the sense that some days I come up short- not a lot, but fifty-cents. Everywhere I go I feel like I come up short. I’m rarely perfectly attired (the iron and I don’t see eye to eye), I rarely speak eloquently since my foot is often stuck in my mouth, and I’m not really comfortable at parties despite dancing on the tables. I’m a writer, but still fifty-cents short (I’m still getting more rejectio