my mother...the international super spy

everyone who knows me has heard me talk about my mom before. we are really close. she is an intelligent, strong, hard-working latina. i'm like the greek version of her, or so they tell me. i have always felt really lucky to have a great mother figure, a mami who balanced work and family, she does charity work, and she's interviewed/worked with: reagan, bush 41, clinton, & W.  i have a mother who has traveled the world and cussed castro the eff out. my mom is awesome.

so, it was overwhelmingly suprising when she told me the ridiculous ass story i am about to lay out. this is the story of how my mother and her friend thought they had outsmarted homeland security and al queda.

my mom drives to work in dc everyday with her 60 year old friend. i'll call her friend K.  over a year ago, they saw this "bizarre" car decal. then slowly over time, they'd see the decal pop up more frequently. they would try to peak at who was driving these cars but couldn't get a good look. mom and K, who read way too many crime/spy/investigating novels, determined that these decals were markers of "one of them"...terrorists. they even told my little brother of this, that there a special sect of al queda was, signaling to each other via car decals with their "conspicuous symbol". i look at this symbol. then i look at my mother. and all i can think is what?!

first, the fact the idea of a terrorist group using a fairly "conspicuous" symbol to signal each other on their cars was ridiculous to me. second, the idea that only my mother and her friend were able to figure this theory out was ridiculous to me. you see, i knew EXACTLY what this symbol was. my mom then goes to tell me how K discovered what the symbol actually was on vacation. my mother seemed disappointed when she told me this part. i don't know if she was slightly embarrassed or sad that she wasn't some amazing detective. she still tries to convince me of her rational and that i will owe her an apology if they ever find out that terrorist organizations had been secretly using this symbol to communicate.

so what exactly is the symbol we were debating....

why the state flag of south carolina!! they saw a vague resemblance to the symbol of islam and believed that terrorists decided to replace the small star with a fucking palm tree. you know, so they wouldn't stand out or anything. oh mom, can't be perfect all the time.