Always Talk to Your Mum on Mother's Day: A Cautionary Tale

It's not often I'll ask you to do this, my darlings, but right now, it's very important you put your drink down and back away slowly. I refuse to be responsible if you don't.

Right?

Right.

So. True fucking story:

I work Sundays, which rather puts a crimp in calling me dear old mums on Mother's Day. Not a problem in my stepmother's case: she has email. I dispatched one to her.

My natural mother is a Luddite. I decided to call her at lunch. I attempted to do so. No answer. So I left a message in my sweetest your-daughter-luuurrves-you voice. I pounded out our daily Discurso and went back to work.

My cell phone is sitting on my desk. It begins to vibrate.

It's my roommate.

Twice.

In two minutes.

Awshit, thinks I, something's wrong with my cat. Or our third-floor apartment is now a second-floor apartment due to the vagaries of recalcitrant support beams. Or I've done something to piss her off mightily. Or something's wrong with my cat. Ogods is my kitty dying?!?

I text her, all the while trying to make the customer on my line believe I'm paying full attention to his issue and in no way quietly panicking.

My roommate texts back: Police were here when I came home. Your mother was/is worried...

That's right. My mother called the police on me. Because she hadn't gotten my message and I hadn't talked to her on Mother's Day.

T-Mobile, the stupid fucks, hadn't delivered my message. Her phone alerted her to a new voicemail which turned out to be an old voicemail from a neighbor. My brand new shiny HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!! message vanished into the ether, and left my mother thinking my roommate must have killed me over a boy.

Seriously.

So let this be a lesson to you all: always talk to your mum on Mother's Day. Or suffer the consequences.