My mother has finally figured out how to send text messages. Despite the fact that she still has unlimited text messaging from when I was on her plan, she tries her hardest to economize her messages. This seems like a natural inclination while texting, but she manages to do so in a way that actually defies one of the tacit rules therein.
Most texts you receive have one topic. For instance, “Where are we eating tonight? What time do you want me there? Are we doing anything afterward?” This message asks three questions, but they’re all related to a central topic.
My mother, on the other hand, learned to text on Htrae. Here is an actual text I’ve received from her: “Hello son. I hope your week is going well. Grandma is in the hospital again. Let me know when I can send in your car payment.” Nothing can prepare you for such a text. It's almost as if she's worried about running up the bill by breaking up her thoughts in an organic way. Not counting the greeting, there are three separate topics in this message. I’ll break down each one so that you can better understand the punch such a message packs.
Hello son.
My family has a quirk shared with many others in that we refer to one another by our relationship to one another. It isn’t odd for a child to refer to his/her parents as “Mom” and “Dad,” and most nieces and nephews refer their aunts/uncles as “Aunt/Uncle So-and-So.” My family, however, takes it a step further. My parents call me “Son.” I call my brother “Brother.” My uncle Jeff is simply “Uncle.” The only relationship where this isn’t the case is the uncle/aunt-to-niece/nephew title. My aunts and uncles all refer to me as Stephen (or Stevie).
Upon witnessing this for the first time, most people just assume my parents are reacting sarcastically to getting called outside of their given names or something. Or they think my brother and I are just quoting Arrested Development. That one is actually kind of true. I've certainly adopted Buster's affect whenever I greet my brother. Still, just know that names are only important in my family if the relationship alone isn't specific enough to convey information.
I hope your week is going well.
I try to talk to my mom at least once a week. I rarely initiate the conversation, but if I miss a call, I’ll generally return it unless it’s the fourth or fifth I’ve received that day. A week is an arbitrary amount of time that I’ve decided is long enough to not feel smothered, and short enough to show affection and respect. This was my mom’s way of reminding me that I hadn’t called her yet this week.
In my defense, it isn’t always easy to call her. Parents of my generation who live in small tows have a tendency to respond to Empty Nest Syndrome by becoming hometown newscasters. This can be entertaining on occasion, especially when someone with whom I attended high school ends up in the newspaper for illicit activities. Unfortunately, more often than not, I’ll find out about the deaths of relatives of people I hardly knew. Today, for instance, I learned of a doctor’s son who died of an overdose. This was only relevant to me because he had another son who committed suicide six years ago. I did not know either son, which means my mom has decided all suicides are relevant to my life due to my oldest brother’s suicide eleven years ago. Hopefully, you can see why I don’t jump at the chance to call my mother more often to play Six Degrees of Lachrymosity.
This also changed with time. Eventually, we started bonding over mutual interests like cooking and gardening. Recently, we met at a BBQ restaurant and had some of the best potato salad I’ve ever eaten. We agreed on that fact and then spent about 15 minutes trying to figure out what went into it. By the next morning, she had sent me two different links to recipes confirming what we had guessed. It’s kind of like a game except it normally just makes whoever is eating with us very nervous and quiet.
Grandma is in the hospital again.
My grandma has been having back problems for several years. Two years ago, she fell and hurt her back and spent several months in the hospital and the nursing home. She was eventually able to come back, but whenever she feels neglected, she’ll pull out the paperwork and threaten to sign herself in. She’s the only person I know who on occasion wants to live in a facility that smells so strongly of urine. This message was a request for me to call my grandma and then come home and visit her over the weekend.
Let me know when I can send in your car payment.
At this point, my mom had one of my checkbooks and was sending in the payment for me at the beginning of every month. I was only subbing during this time, so sometimes the payment would need to wait a few days until the next paycheck. This message, however, was actually how she sealed the deal in terms of me calling her. It was always easier to just tell her which day to send the payment and explain my reasoning over the phone rather than receive a barrage of questions (and most likely more upsetting information). The woman knows what she’s doing.
Hopefully my mom will learn to break up these meaning-laden texts, but until then, I'm happy to share them with all willing listeners.
