Ignoring the nastiness on this thread, I thought I'd add a point that may or may not have been brought up already. I haven't read through all of the replies yet. When I was a regular pioneer, probably 10 or so years ago, the CO came up to a group of us to share some "exciting news." It turns out that his Bethelite son had just called to inform him that the latest out of Brooklyn was that the Society was going to discontinue printing luxury Bibles (the ones with the faux leather covers). This was back when the society was barely starting to entertain the softcover books idea. I think they had already cheapened the quality of the Watchtower paper by then. Well, they were still printing luxury Bibles as of two years ago when I stopped going to meetings.
The point is that C.O.'s can be just as gossipy as anyone else. It is quite possible that this guy got an "inside scoop" from a third or fourth hand source and the message had been altered in the process. COs typically like the attention they get and the look of awe from the publishers faces when they share special insider knowledge with them. I'm sure it makes many of them feel like gods. It could very well be true that your mother shared exactly what she heard from the CO with you, but that the CO, not your mother, was the one that was confused. My $.02.