Back in the early 80s, my younger brother and I would sometimes be home alone while our mother was working as a nurse at the local clinic. She always gave us the same instructions: "Only call me in an emergency."
Right.
We had that number memorized within a hot minute and would call her up in record speed, on a rotary, the second either one of us pissed each other off. Which happened often, since one of our games was called War, and the sole purpose was to inflict the most amount of damage on each other.
She would answer as soon as we paged her and all she would hear would be this gurgling statement, "He is KILLING.ME. Mom!!!"
And I'm sure she'd tilt her permed head down, close her eyes, and sigh. I can't believe she didn't come home and throttle us both, because we sure deserved it. And every day it would be rinse and repeat.
Fast forward a few decades.
Now it's me at work, sitting at my desk. A big part of my job is answering the phones and talking to clients. And I've had to tell my mom eerily familiar instructions: "Mom, only call me during the day if it's an emergency." She's retired now, so maybe our versions of emergencies are different. Don't get me wrong, I love my mom...but we will admittedly drive each other nuts some times. That's the soul of the mother-daughter dynamic.
One of her last "emergencies" was declared after I answered my cell phone hurriedly at work one day. "Hey Mom, what's up?"
"Well, I'm at Kohls..."
The funny thing is, almost all of my friends can share the exact same story about their moms. It truly comes full circle. But in this case, once the vein in my forehead stopped throbbing, I immediately texted my dad. "You need to teach Mom to text. Like ASAP. Thx."
Shortly thereafter my mother learned to text. And it was a glorious thing. My next suggestion to her was to text me when at all possible, rather than call. Mainly because my house is like a bunker and it's hard to get reception.
"But I like to hear your voice," she said. Ok, I get it. I like to hear her voice too sometimes.
My next strong/fierce suggestion to them was to call before they just randomly showed up at my new house. And in full disclosure, my parents were almost always stopping by to do something generous and wonderful - like installing a microwave or dropping off banana bread.
But one time my dad showed up on a Saturday morning and I had to have a come-to-Jesus with my mom.
"Mom, you guys cannot just show up. Especially on weekends. What if I had a dude over who had spent the night?"
My mom looked at me hopefully, "Do you?"
"Well, no. But I could. And it is certainly not going to help my dating life if I have to worry about my dad having to introduce himself to some guy in the hallway."
Message received. As of today, I'd say their compliance rate is a strong 90%.
AND my mom has become a pretty efficient texter, too. She even handled herself remarkably well when one of my good friends, let's call her Sylvia, somehow - inadvertently - mistakenly texted my mother instead of me. How Sylvia had my mother's cell phone number, we will never know. But Sylvia ended up texting my mom (thinking it was me) about her recent frustrations with online dating. "Seriously, all they want to do is fool around and eat your ass. Doesn't anyone buy a girl dinner anymore???" Trust me, the three of us have been laughing about that for MONTHS. Truly though, I think part of my mom's innocence was forever crushed that day she received the accidental text.
Things have really changed with texting the last few years. You can basically have full-blown conversations with minimal words and lots of emojis. And emojis will run the gamut, too. It's no longer just a couple versions of the smiley face. Now you can use the eggplant emoji when you're describing, um, a man's genitals. And you use the kitty cat when you're describing the woman's um, "kitty cat." Sexting with emojis...how cute.
I'm not sure if my mom knows all of that yet. She just started using the coffee cup emoji correctly when she tells me to come over.
She's been working a lot outside this summer. What if, god forbid, she sends me a text: "Ur dad and I are going 2 work in the garden. I hope he shows me his (eggplant emoji)."
If that happens, I think I'll tell her to skip the texting and just call me from now on.
I promise I'll pick up the phone.
Every. Single. Time.
