Guilt day
by Jon Worley

A friend of mine asked me what I was getting my mom for Mother's Day. I said that I would probably call. No trinket? No flowers? No trip to Jamaica? Nope, I said, I'm simply going to call and talk to her about whatever comes up. That's all she wants? he asked. I haven't heard any grumbling, I said. Geez, he replied. If I don't get my mom something substantial, my dad lets me have it until the next Mother's Day. What's substantial? I asked. A hundred bucks worth of clothing, he told me.

It was my turn to go Geez. You must be really secure in your relationship with your parents to not make a big deal over Mother's Day, he said. I guess, I said. I added that since both of my parents' birthdays (and my own) always fall between two and three weeks before Mother's Day, our family is kinda tired of these "special days".

So what did you get your parents for their birthdays? he asked. I called them. At least, I called my Mom, and I left a message for my dad at the place he was staying in Memphis on a business trip. You just left a message? he asked, somewhat incredulous. Well, I said, I think I e-mailed him as well. His only reply was the You must be really secure in your relationship with your parents line.

I suppose. Everywhere I am this week, there's Mother's Day crap. Even the local NPR station, on a pledge drive, is laying out a special deal whereby a flower shop will send carnations to your mother if you pledge a certain amount. And carnations, they remind me, are the flowers that the originator of the holiday thought would be the perfect Mother's Day gift.

Other places have other ideas. My wife and I cruised the mall to get her mother and her grandmother something (I'm not even going to start analyzing that behavior). On every store window were signs like "Have you got her gift yet?", "Give her what she wants: the new Live album", "Mom deserves the best" (at Fredericks, of all places), "Give her the gift of megabytes" and my personal favorite, "Mom needs a second cellular phone".

While Mother's Day wasn't invented by a greeting card company (don't forget niece's-in-law day, the second Sunday in July), I'm still not a big fan of these heavy-handed holidays. I've just gotten over the crass commercialization of Easter (I saw a chocolate Easter bunny on a cross in a fundamentalist Christian bookstore--I'm not sure if that was some sort of protest or something even stranger), and then comes all this "Buy! Buy! Buy!" pressure. Next is graduation, which teams well with Memorial Day (Get the dead vet in your family a Rolex, some jeweler in town is sure to advertise) to whack people over the head with the dollar stick. Yikes.

So I asked my friend Al what he got his mother for Mother's Day. I know Al, and I know his mother. They get along well, and I think both of them are well-adjusted sorts of people. Folks who, I figured, would think along my lines.

I'm getting her the complete Shakespeare, he said. That big volume that goes for twenty-five bucks in the remainder stacks? I asked. No, no, he assured me, each play separately bound in leather, with two books of sonnets and some other stuff. Boy, I said, that seems a bit McCartney-esque, don't you think? Naw, he said, that was last year, when I got her the seventy-five disc Zamfir Magic of the Pan Flute boxed set.

Maybe this theory about security in my relationship with my parents is one big load. Perhaps I'm simply an inconsiderate bastard.

Jon Worley last gave his mother a Mother's Day gift 20 years ago. It was perfume. She's allergic to perfume.

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