Mom Cops (twice cooked)

Title: The Strange Orbit of Jerry Lansing

Jerry Lansing was a regular guy. Thirty-four, lived out of a suitcase for work, and spent more time in midrange hotels than in his own apartment. He sold cloud-based HR software to school districts. Nothing glamorous, but it paid the bills. Jerry’s idea of adventure was adding an extra shot to his morning latte. So it came as something of a surprise when, somewhere between Ohio and Indiana, a group of exceedingly strange people started appearing everywhere he went.

It started subtly: an older woman in a pantsuit sat next to him in the hotel lobby and asked—with no context whatsoever—if he’d “made contact with Omaha yet.” He thought she meant the city. She clarified: “Omaha is a person. We use code names. Don’t play dumb, your mother knows how this works.”

Jerry’s mother, Ellen, was a retired dental assistant who spent her days doing yoga and playing bridge. She’d never handled anything more covert than hiding the good snacks from his dad. So when this woman winked conspiratorially and shuffled off muttering something about “light ops,” Jerry chalked it up to weird travel coincidence.

But then it kept happening.

In Kentucky, a man in a TGI Fridays polo whispered, “Stay low. We’ve got eyes on Lincoln, but you’re the decoy.” In Pennsylvania, a gray-haired duo followed him for three straight blocks before cornering him to say, “Don’t worry, your mom’s cell is holding the northern border. We’re all family here.”

“Family?” Jerry repeated.

“Not blood, firm,” said the man, tapping his temple.

That’s when the dread kicked in. They weren’t just talking about families. They were talking about the Firm. As in CIA. Jerry couldn’t decide what was more terrifying: that these people thought his mom was running an interstate spy ring, or that they seemed to genuinely believe he was involved.

One man—a former substitute teacher named Dennis—slipped Jerry a thumb drive “for Ellen’s network.” It contained, Jerry later discovered, a video of a goose honking at a Roomba. He began to realize the terrifying truth: these people weren’t spies. They were idiots.

Idiots with walkie-talkies and clipboards, with laminated “mission cards” and an obsession with acronyms that didn’t mean anything. They weren’t coordinated by any agency. They were self-assigning covert operations based on misunderstood military thrillers, forgotten training manuals, and vague memories of who they thought Ellen Lansing might be.

It would’ve been funny, if it hadn’t been so persistent. Wherever he went, they appeared. Calling themselves “The Network.” Talking about “active zones.” Referencing mall security guards as “local assets.” One woman even told him, dead serious, that she’d been monitoring his steps on Fitbit because “movements indicate operational shifts.”

Jerry tried confronting them. Tried explaining his mom had never worked in government, had no idea what COINTELPRO was, and certainly wasn’t directing “interstate surveillance logistics” from her bungalow in Phoenix.

But they just smiled at him, pitying. “You’re deep cover. You can’t admit it. We get it.”

Eventually, he stopped protesting. He just started booking his hotel rooms under fake names, moving through states like a ghost. Somewhere along the way, he decided the only way to win was to go deeper undercover—into normalcy. That’s how Jerry Lansing, a perfectly ordinary software salesman, became the most well-protected non-agent in the country.

Meanwhile, in Phoenix, Ellen Lansing deleted a string of emails titled “Mission Report: Son in Transit,” and wondered aloud why so many strangers kept asking if she was accepting “new recruits.”

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

# The Watchers

Dave Miller just wanted to visit his mom in Florida. That was it. A simple two-week road trip: Ohio to Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, and finally to his mother's retirement community in Sarasota. What Dave got instead was a rolling circus of lunacy that seemed to follow him across state lines.

It started at a gas station in Louisville. A man in an ill-fitting suit approached while Dave was pumping gas.

"The eagle has landed safely in the nest," the man whispered, glancing around nervously.

"Excuse me?" Dave asked.

"Just tell your mother that Nighthawk is in position. She'll understand."

Dave stared blankly. "My mother? She's a retired middle school librarian."

The man winked dramatically. "Of course she is. *Wink wink*. We're all very proud of her work with the network."

Before Dave could respond, the man disappeared behind a minivan.

Two days later at a diner in Chattanooga, a woman slid into his booth while he was eating breakfast.

"The cipher has been broken," she announced, dropping a napkin with scribbled numbers onto his plate. "Your mother's team in Florida has already been alerted."

"Look," Dave said, pushing away his ruined eggs, "I don't know what you think my mom does, but she spends her days playing canasta and complaining about humidity."

The woman smiled knowingly. "Perfect cover, isn't it? Please tell Director Miller that the Knoxville operation was a complete success."

"Director Miller? Her name is Barbara!"

By Atlanta, things had escalated. Three people in matching windbreakers followed him through the World of Coca-Cola, speaking urgently into their wristwatches. One "accidentally" bumped into him and slipped a USB drive into his pocket.

"For your mother's eyes only," the man whispered. "The fate of operations in three states depends on it."

Dave threw the USB drive away in the nearest trash can, which caused visible distress among his windbreaker-clad shadows.

In Florida, it reached new heights of absurdity. A group of five people in tourist attire – Hawaiian shirts and oversized sunglasses – formed a protective perimeter around him at a beachside restaurant.

"Sir, we've secured the area," one said, scanning the mostly empty patio populated by elderly couples eating early-bird specials. "Your mother's intelligence was spot-on about the drop location."

Dave put down his fork. "Who are you people? Why do you think my mother is running some kind of... spy network?"

"We understand the need for plausible deniability," another replied. "But rest assured, we're all dedicated members of the Family. Your mother's leadership in the southeast quadrant has been inspirational."

"The Family?" Dave asked.

"You know," the woman whispered, "The *Family*." She made an elaborate gesture that seemed to mimic both eagle wings and a government seal.

When Dave finally reached his mother's condo, he was exhausted. Barbara Miller, 73, greeted him with a hug and fresh-baked cookies.

"Mom," Dave said, accepting a glass of lemonade, "the strangest thing has been happening. These people keep following me, talking about you being some kind of... spy boss?"

Barbara laughed. "Oh, those poor confused souls. They approached me at bingo last month. I think they've seen too many movies."

She showed him letters they'd sent her – rambling missives about "codes" and "operations" that connected random events across multiple states into an elaborate fantasy of covert action.

"They seem to think my weekly calls to my old teacher friends are some kind of... what did they call it? 'Command briefings'?" She shook her head. "I tried telling them I'm just a retired librarian, but they just wink and say they 'understand the need for cover stories.'"

Later that evening, Dave spotted them – a cluster of figures in dark clothes, poorly hidden behind his mother's neighbor's hibiscus bushes. One was filming the condo with a camcorder, another taking notes.

Dave walked out onto the patio.

"Hey!" he called. "My mom is not a spy! There is no network! You people need to get lives and stop bothering us!"

A hushed voice carried across the lawn: "The son is maintaining extraordinary operational security. Just as we were trained."

Dave went back inside, locked the door, and poured himself a much stronger drink than lemonade.

"Maybe next time," his mother said, patting his arm, "you should just fly."