My mother has tried to kill me a few times in my life. She dropped me down a rock ledge as a two year old, and just to make sure I was injured she threw herself down on top of me and broke my leg. I had to hobble around in a plaster cast for a month... as a two year old!

More recently, she tried to poison me in high school. She gave me 20 drops of weed killer poison one day when I was feeling sick thinking it was 'Echinacea' (an immune system boost). Needless to say it didn't make me better, it made things worse and I started feeling an acute pain in my liver.

Once she realised that she had given me poison, and NOT an immune boost, mum called the poisons hotline and told them about what had happened. Not in the usual 'I'm a frantic mother who accidentally poisoned my son' kind of way either. This was the 'Haha! I poisoned my kid and this is the funniest thing I have EVER done!' kind of way.

Not only did she spend the whole time on the phone laughing about poisoning her eldest son, she also started making fun of the poisons helpline operator, who began scolding her for laughing about a potentially fatal situation.

"It's NOT funny you know!"
"Haha... no... not at all! AHahaha!"

So how did she poison me? Well, I had done some community service with Taronga Zoo in year 10 working on a bush regeneration program on the harbour. Part of this involved a specific technique of weeding, using a small drip bottle of weed killer, designed to put as little toxin as possible into the biosphere.

I replicated this effect at home on our own garden, and used an old empty bottle of Echinacea as my drip bottle of poison. Mum found this *Echinacea* bottle tucked away in the Laundry cupboard amongst the other weed / snail / rat poisons, and naturally assumed it was safe for human consumption, and gave it to me when I was sick. Leading to much pain, anguish and anger on my part. And much laughter, merriment and amusement on the part of my mothers... So I learned a few things about Mum that day.

My mother believes:

...Medicines kept in the specific poison cupboard, surrounded by all the other poisons, in a bottle that has 'weed killer' written over the outside of the label, are naturally assumed to be 'fit for human consumption'

...The poisons hotline is a good source of laughter, and hence a good mid afternoon 'pick-me-up' when pesky sick kids have got you feeling down.

...Poison helpline operators are qualified clowns.

...Laughing at your newly poisoned son will make him better.

...If at first you don't succeed (in dropping your child down a ledge in an apparent murder attempt) try try again (and use poison).

Life is good eh?